Digger wasp on ironweed
Sphex ichneumoneus
Great Golden Digger Wasp · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 12 July 2025
A Great Golden Digger Wasp working the spiky purple buds of ironweed in the July border, a generalist forager visiting whatever is flowering. It is a solitary wasp of meadows and gardens across North America, and the sunny beds of a botanic garden are exactly its country.
The orange abdomen and golden hair on the thorax are the marks. Despite the size it is a placid species, and the sting is kept for the katydids it hunts to stock its burrow in the bare soil nearby.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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