Wall spider slayer
| Wall spider slayer | ||||||||||||
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Wall spider killer ( Sceliphron distillatorium ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Sceliphron distillatorium | ||||||||||||
| ( Illiger , 1807) |
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The Wall Spider Slayer ( sceliphron destillatorium ), also Southern Wall wasp called, one is kind of the Hymenoptera belonging grave wasps and far from Europe to Central Asia and North Africa spread. He feeds the brood with spiders . Since the closely related and very similar species Sceliphron spirifex is also known as the wall spider slayer, there is a risk of confusion.
features
The body length of the males is 15-25 mm, that of the females 22-30 mm. The body is mainly black in color, but there are also parts of the body colored in yellow. These include the petiolus (abdomen stalk), large parts of the legs and the antennae base (scapus). In addition, there is a crescent-shaped yellow spot on the thorax (postscutellum) of females and the tegulae (wing roots) are yellowish in both males and females. In the male, the face is hairy silver-white. There are 3 cubital cells on the wings . The petiolus is almost as long as the rest of the abdomen .
A rare form (f. Pensile) is known from Corsica and Greece , in which the Petiolus is colored black.
Similar species
In Central Europe there are three other species of the genus. The oriental wall wasp ( Sceliphron curvatum ) is quite easy to distinguish from S. distillatorium , since z. B. the abdomen is curled and reddish in color (reddish brown tergite bandages), the legs are reddish in color, the petiolus is black and the thorax has a different pattern.
The American wall wasp ( Sceliphron caementarium ) has more yellow parts on its body, e.g. B. several yellow spots on the thorax (including the propodeum and scutellum are colored yellow) and a yellow area on the abdomen behind the petiolus (tergite I). The petiolus is also colored black. At first glance, however, the species is very similar to S. distillatorium ; the Scapus is also colored yellow.
Sceliphron spirifex is also very similar, but this species lacks yellow spots on the thorax, and the antennae base is black. The face of the males is hairy black.
distribution
The species is mainly found in southern Europe and western Asia, but also lives in southern central Europe and eastern Europe. In the east, the species occurs to Russia , more precisely western Siberia, northwest China, Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan , northern Iran and Syria . She also lives in northwest Africa.
Most of the finds come from the Iberian Peninsula with the exception of the northwest, southern France, Italy , the Balkan Peninsula , southeast Austria and Slovenia . In Germany there are isolated occurrences in the Upper Rhine Valley , Ruhr Area and Bavaria , which are presumably due to carry-overs. There are also records of the species in Switzerland . In Eastern Europe, the species also occurs further north and is found e.g. B. in Poland , Lithuania , Belarus and in Russia up to about the 56th parallel. The species is also widespread around the Black Sea and in the Caucasus . In Africa , the species lives in Morocco and in the north of Algeria .
In Europe, the species was long considered the most common species of the genus, but the oriental wall wasp is now spreading more widely, partially displacing S. distillatorium . In general, global warming favors the spread of S. distillatorium, however, it can now also reproduce in Germany.
way of life
The species occurs from May to July, depending on the local climate, and lives until August. The clay nest is attached to walls, stones, trunks and the like, also in buildings. It is about the size of a fist and is reminiscent of swallow nests. It consists of 8–10 individual chambers, so-called brood cells, which are filled with paralyzed spiders. No particular spiders are preferred. By hunting way in the upper herb layer but mainly be crab spiders , orb-weaver spider , lynx spider and Strecker spider captured. A larva develops in each little room. The nests are rainproof, so the species in Central Europe is less dependent on the presence of human buildings than some other Sceliphron species.
The species is parasitized by various other insects, most notably the fly Amobia pelopei . The fly larvae hatch earlier than the wasp larvae and feed on the spiders before they drill into the neighboring cells and eat more spiders here. This causes the wasp larvae to starve. The golden wasp Chrysis taczanovskyi is also a parasite of the wall spider killer. Their larvae eat the Sceliphron larvae in the nest. Another parasite is the ore wasp Melittobia acasta .
Taxonomy
The species was first described in 1807 by Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger as a Sphex distillatorium . Other synonyms are Sphex flavipes Christ , 1791, Pelopaeus distillatorius ( Illiger , 1807), Pelopoeus pensilis ( Illiger , 1807), Pepsis distillatoria Illiger , 1807, Pepsis pensilis Illiger , 1807, Sceliphron pensilis ( Illiger , 1807), Pelopoeus sardonier de Lepeletierius Fargeau , 1845, Sceliphron sordonium ( Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau , 1845) and Pelopoeus sardous Carruccio , 1872.
literature
- Michael Chinery : Parey's Book of Insects . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co., Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-440-09969-5 , p. 238.
- Jiří Zahradník: The Cosmos Insect Guide 6th edition. Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co., Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-440-09388-3 , p. 234.
Web links
- Sceliphron distillatorium . In:zoographia germaniae. Retrieved November 14, 2021.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Christian Schmid-Egger: Sceliphron curvatum (F. Smith 1870) in Europe with an identification key for the European and Mediterranean Sceliphron species (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae). , in: bembiX 19, Bielefeld 2004, pp. 7–28 ( PDF ).
- ↑ a b Sceliphron distillatorium (Illiger, 1807) in GBIF Secretariat (2021). GBIF backbone taxonomy. Checklist dataset [1] accessed via GBIF.org on November 14, 2021.