Potter wasps is also known as mason wasps, are very interesting insects that are named for the way and the form in which they build their hives. They are truly pottery artists and create unique and beautiful pot-like homes for their off-springs.
The name "potter wasp" derives from the shape of the mud cell built by species of delta conoideum and similar genera. It is believed that Native Americans based their pottery designs upon the form of local potter wasp nests.
The common potter wasp is primarily black in color, but it also has yellow or red markings on the thorax or abdomen. There are also some interesting tropical species that can have green or blue markings.
It is the female potter wasp (Delta conoideum) that do all the construction on their homes, rather than the males. Possibly the simplest of the potter wasp constructions is made with mud and has tiny cells between the layers. The female will either gather droplets of water soon after rain fall mixed with her own saliva to make the mud. It is truly an amazing process! A potter wasp makes its cell by stacking mud in a specific manner and shaping it to give a pot like form. It collects mud and form a ball of mud with the aid of its long mandibles and fore legs. Holding the mud ball in between its mandibles and fore legs it flies to its nesting site and start stacking mud on the substrate by a beautiful simultaneous action of fore legs and mandibles. A number of times it goes and collects mud balls to make its nest step by step. After completion of cell making it sits on the cell and inserts its abdomen into the cell and lays their egg. Egg generally hang on upper wall inside the cell. Then it starts hunt and collecting lepidopteran larvae or caterpillars. It paralyzes larvae by stinging and brings them to the nest they created and inserts these larvae into the cell. After storing the larvae, it seals the cell opening by mud to protect their egg in similar way as it does in cell making. The sealed caterpillar lives till the eggs hatch and becomes food for the newly hatched wasp baby. Like this way it builds other 10-12 cells adjacent to the first cell/pot. All cell is attached with the adjacent one, no spaces are there in between two cells.
The potter wasp’s nest is rumored to have been the original inspiration for the Indian pottery that it so strongly resembles.
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