Vespula vulgaris (Common wasp)♀︎

Meconema meridionale (Southern oak bush cricket)

Last update: 3 February 2021


Common

LOCATION: Krimpen aan den IJssel, garden

OBSERVATION:
2018-IX-01


The past weekend a rather macabre scene took place in the garden. I was photographing wasps around the grape filled feeding tray when a wasp swooped in from the sky into the grape plant only to fall to the ground some seconds afterwards. It had caught something which turned out to be a male Southern bushcricket. They struggled a little on the ground, but soon the wasp took control and started cutting off the cricket’s legs one by one. Eventually it was cut in two and the wasp took off with the thorax.
The thorax is used as food for the larvae and I’ve read it is the most nutricious part.

It probably had pictured a different day, that cricket…

The wasp removes the bushcricket’s legs
The wasp removes the bushcricket’s legs
The wasp cuts the thorax from the abdomen
The wasp cuts the thorax from the abdomen
The abdomen and legs are left behind

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