Catocheilus sp. (genus)

Smooth flower wasp at Barragga Bay, NSW

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Identification history

	Catocheilus sp.	26 Nov 2017	KimPullen
	Unidentified	26 Nov 2017	narelle

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User's notes

Its about 1.8 cm long

6 comments

KimPullen wrote:

26 Nov 2017

A female. The males have fully functional wings

narelle wrote:

27 Nov 2017

Hi Kim, Do they sting ? At first I thought "What a lovely striking bug" and went to photograph it. Then suddenly I thought it may be a European Wasp, and that I should kill it, but I couldn't see a sting . It was cleaning itself and suddenly stopped still when I came near. I was a bit scared but then it seemed to relax and start cleaning itself .again.

KimPullen wrote:

28 Nov 2017

Yes Narelle, they do sting, although I've never heard of anyone being stung by one. Another wasp in the same family, the so-called 'Blue ant', has a notorious sting. As with all Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps), it is only the female that can sting.

narelle wrote:

29 Nov 2017

Ahh .. Very interesting . So this one is a female, but I couldn't see a sting, ? I thought that all the bullants I see do have stings, Either they are all females or their pointy bums just look like stings. ?

KimPullen wrote:

30 Nov 2017

The sting in all ants, bees and wasps is usually retracted inside the abdomen, and only comes out when they want to use it, either to defend themselves or to kill or paralyse a prey animal (usually another insect or a spider) to feed their offspring. In most bees and wasps, males and females look fairly similar, but smooth flower wasps (such as this Catocheilus) are exceptional in that the females are wingless. Ants are different again in that they have three 'castes' - winged fertile males, winged fertile females (queens) and wingless sterile females (workers). Normally the only ants we see are the workers; the males and virgin queens only emerge from the nest periodically (often before rain) in swarms that fly into the air, mate and disappear, the mated queens to form new colonies. Not all ants sting, bullants as we know being one kind that does.

narelle wrote:

10 Dec 2017

Ahh. Thankyou. All very interesting.

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