Great Golden Digger Wasp
Sphex ichneumoneus
Great Golden Digger Wasp · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 5 July 2025
A Great Golden Digger Wasp working fennel flowers in the July border, golden hair on a black-and-rust body. It is a solitary wasp of meadows and gardens across North America, digging its burrows in bare, sunny soil, and in July the burrows are the thing to look for.
The digging is done by the female alone, provisioning a burrow with paralysed katydids and crickets for her larvae rather than anything she will eat. Despite the size and the colour it is a placid species, rarely stinging unless handled.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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