Exploring Wasps: Myths, Facts, and Fascinations

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Guest Information

Jennifer Hopwood and Rae Powers both work at the Xerces Society, and coincidentally, both live in Nebraska. Jennifer is a senior pollinator conservation specialist, and has been on Bug Banter before to talk about beetles. Rae is a pollinator conservation specialist and NRCS partner biologist.

Show Notes & Links

In this episode, we talk about the life history of wasps and what you can do to provide habitat for these beneficial insects. Wasps are similar to bees in their nesting habitats, solitary lifestyle, and surprisingly gentle demeanor. The parasitic wasps find creative ways to survive and use other wasps and bees to their advantage. Wasps need native plants and nesting areas similar to bees.

• Habitat Planning for Beneficial Insects
• X Kids
• Recommended books
  • Charley Eiseman, Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American
  • Howard Ensign, Wasp Farm
  • Seirian Sumner, Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps
  • Jean-Henri Fabre, The Hunting Wasps

Transcript

Matthew: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate.

Matthew: Hello! I'm Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel: And I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Matthew: Wasps. That word alone may make you squirm. They aren’t fluffy and cute like their close relatives, bees, and they don’t have the best reputation, but they do play an important role in our environment. It seems like they need a PR makeover.

Matthew: Joining us today to do just that are Jennifer Hopwood and Rae Powers. They both work at the Xerces Society, and coincidentally, both live in Nebraska. Jennifer is a senior pollinator conservation specialist, and has been on Bug Banter before to talk about beetles. Rae is a pollinator conservation specialist and NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) partner biologist.

Matthew: Welcome, Jennifer and Rae!

Jennifer: Hello! Glad to be here.

Rae: Hi, guys, we're excited.

Rachel: Good. We're happy to have you. Welcome back, Jennifer, and welcome, Rae.

Rachel: So let's start with the basics. What makes a wasp a wasp? How are they different from bees in terms of anatomy? How does their general life history compare to that of our native bees? Lots of questions thrown at you right now.

Jennifer: So kind of to take a step back. Wasps are in the order Hymenoptera. And Hymenoptera have members that have their name, Hymenoptera, comes from membranous wings. So they have really delicate membranous wings, and both their hindwing and the forewing are attached with little hooks, so that can make them very, very powerful flyers.

Jennifer: Gosh! It's a really important order. It includes ants, bees, wasps, and then sawflies and horntails. So it's one of the most important orders out there, ecologically.

Jennifer: The sawflies and horntails are herbivorous, so they eat different parts of the plant. And then the rest of the order really depends on really high protein diets. So for bees, that's pollen as larvae.  And for all—many—of the other groups, it's high protein diets in the form of other invertebrates. 

Jennifer: And so those can be dead or alive. And the main groups that we are going to talk about today, the wasps. There's two main groups of those—the stinging wasps and the parasitoid wasps.

Jennifer: And Rae and I were talking earlier, and she likes to think of bees as just vegetarian wasps and ants as wasps without wings. But they're all closely related to each other, and they all do have sort of a similar body plan.

Jennifer: Ants, bees, and wasps have this thin waist in between the thorax and the abdomen.  And in stinging wasps and in parasitoid wasps, as opposed to ants and bees, it's elongated. And it gives them a lot more flexibility, so that they can maneuver it—for stinging wasps to be able to sting, and for parasitoids to be able to use their ovipositor, a structure that they used to deposit eggs into or onto hosts. 

Jennifer: And so that thin wasp is a defining feature—or thin waist, sorry—is the defining feature of wasps. But those are the main things that are different between bees and wasps. There's diet as larva. And that thin waist. 

Jennifer: But those two groups are hugely diverse, and there's a ton of diversity in behaviors in there, and a ton of diversity of things that they feed on.  

Rachel: So I guess one of the follow-up questions I have is... most of our native bees are solitary. What about wasps? Is that the same for them?

Jennifer: Yeah. Great question. Almost all wasps are solitary. There's just a few genera that are social and have a social lifestyle. So it's very similar to bees in that respect. Yeah. And many of them do nest in the same places as bees.  And really approach how they defend their nests, similarly. And how they build their bests. So they have just a lot in common. 

Jennifer: And there is a small group of wasps actually, that have reverted to eating pollen also. So, in that respect they're very similar to a lot of the solitary bees.

Rae:  They show the spectrum of sociality, like our bees—our native bees do. So definitely the majority of them are solitary, but there are sort of gregarious nesters that, you know, they're provisioning that nest on their own, but they're kind of nearby other wasps of the same species. You know, all the way up to the highly social wasps which are super fascinating.

Matthew: You mentioned highly social wasps, and it seems like they—I mean the yellow jackets, hornets, maybe paper wasps—they kind of dominate our thinking about wasps and they're definitely the most noticeable. But from what I've read and understand, they really are just a tiny slice of kind of the wasp world.

Matthew: So do we know how many species of wasps there are out there?

Rae: We definitely don't. Some estimates put it at about a hundred thousand species globally that are described. And that, you know, varies a little bit by the way we're classifying wasps, and how they do that in different places.

Rae: There's most certainly many, many more than that number of wasps that are undescribed. And probably a million, maybe more. It's just a huge group. It's a hugely diverse group that's been really overlooked in research.

Matthew: Sure. Yeah, cause some of them are pretty big. Right? And some of them are—I don't know if microscopic is the correct term. 

Rae: Well, not microscopic, but the smallest adult insect is indeed a wasp species. It's a—they're called fairyflies, but they're not flies at all. They are wasps.

Matthew: Wow! And you talk about there being a hundred thousand, maybe a million in the world. If we narrow down to a garden—and I know there's no such thing, really, as a typical garden, because some people's gardens are an acre or two, and others are just a little kind of postage stamp patch. But, do you have a sense of how many wasps you might encounter in a garden?

Rae: That's a tough one.

Jennifer: Yeah, it is. I do think, like Rae was saying about how diverse they can get, it can mean—part of the reason that they can be such a diverse group is that whether they're predators or whether they're parasitoids, they often have a very narrow host range and preferred diet. So there are some that just focus on eating crickets or grasshoppers, and some that prefer spiders and some that prefer caterpillars. And so that can mean that you can have a lot of different wasps living in one place, and they're not competing with each other for diet. So you can have large numbers and small space.

Jennifer: In my garden, in Omaha. I probably have 15 to 30 species. But I haven't categorized the parasitoid wasps, so those could be—I don't know! And they're, you know, they're pretty hard to recognize and to see. They're so tiny, or they can be so tiny, so they can be hard to see. So, probably we all have a lot more diversity than we think we do.

Rae: Wasp researchers are theorizing that probably every invertebrate out there has a parasitoid wasp that preys on it. And then you get hyperparasitoids. So there's just crazy wasp stories. 

Rae: There's wasps that will lay their egg inside of a caterpillar. The caterpillar is not their prey. They're just waiting for another parasitoid wasp, that maybe specializes on that caterpillar, to lay its egg there. And some of them can adapt their diet and actually eat the caterpillar, if that other wasp doesn't show up, but some of them cannot. And they'll simply die in that caterpillar if that other parasitoid wasp doesn't show up, which, you know, if that's your life strategy, it's gotta be pretty common that you're gonna encounter that other parasitoid wasp.

Matthew: Yeah, cause I've also read—and some of this is fairly old writing—like, Jean-Henri Fabre’s amazing books written century plus back and, you know, the observations that he had of wasps. Stinging wasps capturing their prey and stinging them in very particular body locations, in order to, you know, just to paralyze them so that they wouldn't—they would still be breathing, but wouldn't be able to like kick or squirm. So then they would be able to take them back to the nest for their offspring. And I just—it just amazes me that they have the—just the ability to figure that out. How'd you learn which bit of an insect to sting?

Jennifer: Yes. And that they've, you know, evolved this venom that can subdue them just enough to get them back to their nest, and can somehow keep them alive over time, so that they don't decompose until their larva are ready to eat them. It's pretty tremendous!

Rachel: It’s brutal.

Rae: Yeah, yeah. Many of the solitary hunters are also—they've co-evolved with a virus that they insert that kind of suppresses that host's immune system, so they don't get the immune response against that egg in their body. It just is wild to me.

Matthew: Yeah, but I guess if you rely upon being able to eat other insects, other invertebrates, you must have ways to manage the food supply. Because like solitary wasps, if they are like nesting in the ground—in the same way that a mining bee will take pollen into the nest—they'll be taking whatever—tree crickets, or spiders, or stink bugs, or something—in and supplying the larva. I mean in the way that—I mean, I go to the grocery store each week and refill my pantry. That's kind of what the wasps are doing, but they only get to do it once a year, right?

Rae: Yeah, do or die. So gotta figure it out.

Matthew: Not all of the species in this country are native. We do have a few non-natives. And are those more problematic? I mean, are they kind of pest species? Or can any wasp kind of be a pest? Or am I just thinking of a pest as being an annoying wasp, you know?

Jennifer: I do think that's how, you know, people have—how wasps have gotten a bit of their bad name. It's that, especially those social species which are really aggressive in defending their nest, because they have so many resources built up on that nest, you know, rightly so they want it to survive. So, they'll chase people away, and stinging. And it can sting multiple times! And it can be quite painful, the venom from their sting.

Jennifer: So, I think that some people do define all wasps as pests because of that. But some of our introduced species—now there's a range of—they just exist alongside our native species, and then you have some, like the European hornet, or the giant hornet, or European paper wasp that are a little bit more aggressive.

Jennifer: And because of that, and also because they can sometimes out-compete other native species, that kind of trends towards the earning of the pest category or problematic category. There are also a whole range of introduced parasitoid wasps that have been intentionally introduced or accidentally introduced. When we introduced other insects, they, you know, inadvertently brought over their parasitoid too.

Jennifer: And some of those have been intentionally introduced, because it can be really host-specific. And so they've been imported to control pests that we that we have accidentally introduced also. So, little tiny wasps have been brought over to control crop pests, caterpillars, flies, herbivorous beetles, other things. As well as ornamental pests, like the emerald ash borer.

Jennifer: And so that's part of classical biological control programs, where you import a species that is a parasitoid or predator from the pest species’ native range. And you bring it over and you rear it, and then it's released in tandem, with all sorts of agencies, and federal and state, and so forth. So people are tracking it and tracking the outcome, and so forth. But we do have many of those introduced species also.

Rachel: You segued perfectly into the next question, about stinging specifically. You know, I think when people think of wasps that might be—not everybody—but it might be one of the first things they think of, is they’re insects that sting. But do all wasps sting? And are they all aggressive? You've kind of hinted at this a little bit already. And why do they sting in the first place?

Rae: Yeah. So no! Not all wasps sting. Not even anywhere near the majority of wasps sting. They didn't evolve that in—for quite a long time after wasps were around. So our parasitoid wasps, their ovipositor, which is what stings people, is just for laying eggs. So the parasitoid wasps really can't sting you at all. Then we move into sort of the solitary hunters that evolved and they use that ovipositor to inject venom into their prey, like we've been talking about. So they have—some of them have the capacity to sting you, but they really—it's very rare that they're going to be bothered to sting you. They really are focused on that food prey. 

Rae: It isn't really until we move into those social wasps that we start to see sort of that stinging hazard for threats. And they are stinging because they're defending that nest site, which has, you know, I like to think of it as their nursery. All of their babies are there. All of their sisters are there. So when they see you approaching, you know, that's a threat to their little community.

Rachel: And is it the same with—because with bees, it's the same with the ovipositor. It's only the females that can sting. Is it the same with wasps?

Jennifer: Yeah. Great question. Only the females. Yep. 

Jennifer: And, just kind of a side note, just like bees, can choose whether or not to fertilize their eggs. Wasps are the same. They have that same genetic system that's baked into all Hymenoptera where females have two copies of chromosomes. Males only have one. So males are the result of an unfertilized egg, and females are the result of a fertilized egg. And that means that females that reproduce store sperm and decide when to lay fertilized and unfertilized eggs. 

Jennifer: And that's just sort of a side note, because it's super fascinating and interesting. But it can also determine—it's just really neat to think that they can determine the number of individuals that they put out into the world. And for some wasps, too, they choose to have a generation of just unfertilized individuals. It's just a quick way to reproduce.

Rachel: Yeah, that's a good side note. It is very interesting. And I think, you know, so much of what we hear about wasps are those social bees—or the social wasps—that sting. But can you give us a nice example of a non-stinging wasp? Since we don't hear about those as much.

Rae: There's so many! There's so many stories to tell about non-stinging wasps! It's hard to pick one. I think I would throw back to a really weird one, which is one of the fairyflies, which is one of the, you know, really small, very small parasitoid wasps. So there is actually an aquatic wasp. 

Rae: So it parasitizes the eggs of water beetle larva. And they have these really unique wings that are almost like paddles. They're kind of long and slender. And then they've got these broader pieces, and they use those to sort of swim through the water. And they can live underwater for up to 15 days.

Rae: So that just blew my mind. There's like wasps living underwater. So that's a fun one to highlight. Certainly not typical. But just one of those stories that makes you go, "wow."

Matthew: Yeah. Do they live their entire life cycle underwater?

Rae: Oh, that's a good question. You know, I'm not sure. I believe—so when they're in the egg, certainly they're underwater. I don't know if they then perish after that. I think they are entirely aquatic, but I could be wrong.

Matthew: I was, just, yeah, wow. I have not heard that before.

Jennifer: Can I give—Rae, can I give an example on the other end of the size spectrum, since you went for the really small ones?

Rae: Yeah!

Matthew: Go for it.

Jennifer: This one's probably familiar to some people. But the cicada killer wasp. That's one of the largest insects, certainly one of the largest wasps. And it's a solitary wasp. And they just have one generation a year, and they emerge right about now, at least in the central part of the country. And they are predators of cicadas. But just the annual cicadas, the dog-day cicada primarily, and other annual cicadas, because their emerge time doesn't line up with the periodical cicadas that come out earlier in the spring. 

Jennifer: So this giant wasp will tackle cicadas. And cicadas are not small! And they fight, and wrestle them, and they finally sting them and subdue them, and then they have to carry them back to their nest. And it's like two times their body weight. So if you've ever watched one struggle, it's an effort! Sometimes they just have to drag it back. Sometimes it's a combo of flying. And sometimes it's a combo of launching off of a tree to find the angle to land somewhere near their ground nest. And then they just store those cicadas away, like two to three within a nest, to feed their offspring, which probably—maybe two to three cicadas is like 10 to 16 wasps.

Jennifer: But because they're so large, people do worry about them. But it's a classic example of—they're not gonna sting unless you maybe picked one up in your hand and grabbed it. And they just aren't concerned with people at all. But they're out there just looking for their prey. 

Rae: Those are a cool example of kind of the prey handling and being able to sting in a very specific site. They sting right at the base of the legs of the cicada, where they're unprotected, and otherwise they've, you know, got a pretty protected body.

Matthew: So then do they like flip the cicada? Like a wrestling match, turn it over and—?

Rae: I don't know. Jenny, have you watched one?

Jennifer: They do carry it upside down, typically. So I wonder if they do, Matthew, and if that's part of the effort to tackle them. I've never seen them sting, only the after effects once she's got it subdued. And yeah, then she'll manipulate it and carry it under her body when she's getting ready to fly and yeah. I didn't know that they had a specific place that they stung. That's pretty cool and so smart. And how much trial and error? And how do you pass that on? I don't know. It's tremendous.

Rae: Yeah. Mind-blowing.

Matthew: Yeah, no. I always have a memory of watching a golden digger wasp, one time, bringing a tree cricket back to its nest. And like, going in getting this ready, coming out, dragging the tree cricket down. And that was just on the edge of a high school baseball field. So these things turn up all over the place. So it's great.

Rae: Yeah, nature is right outside your door!

Matthew: In tooth and claw, as we're saying.

Rae: Yeah, there's one other really cool story. When we're talking about, you know, being able to handle and move those really large-bodied insects. There is a wasp that preys on cockroaches. And the cockroach is so much larger than the wasp that she can't, you know, get it back to the nest site. So she does two things to the cockroach. 

Rae: The first is to paralyze it. And then the second is very precisely placed to insert into the brain of the cockroach, which leaves it just alive enough to be to be mobile.  And so she holds the antenna like a leash, and she walks it to the nest. Yeah, straight into the nest, where then, yep, lays an egg on it. And it will be consumed alive by her young. So I thought that was another story. It was just like, what?! Crazy!

Matthew:  I'm just thinking, are the listeners like amazed, or are they going "eww"?

Jennifer: Could be both.

Rae: I feel like at almost every outreach event, I tell people, if you want to write horror stories or make horror movies, like you should really study entomology because some of it is just pretty terrifying. Ha ha. 

Matthew: Some of the horror movies have been based on that, haven't they? One of the classic ones is Alien, where that monster had the articulated mouthparts, and they said that was based upon dragonflies.

Jennifer: Ohh, I didn't know that!

Matthew: That's what I've heard. But someone can prove me wrong. Someone look that up and prove me wrong. But I'd heard that. But I think it may be that I'm not sure if it's the adults or the larvae with that.

Rachel: Oh, yeah. The larvae. If you YouTube it, like, just Google it. Oh, man, I can't unsee that. I still think about it sometimes, and it really bothers me because dragonflies are such beautiful creatures. But, yeah, their larvae are crazy. Yeah, totally. You'll think of Alien, for sure. It's pretty brutal.

Matthew: So we've been talking about why wasps sting—subdue prey and feed the offspring. Which leads the other question of where did they build their nest? We've said they are like solitary bees, and I know a lot of solitary bees are nesting in the ground or some are nesting in tunnels. Is that similar for the stinging wasps?

Jennifer: Yes. Yep. Yeah. Many nest in the ground, and have—you know, in similar places. They'll nest alongside bees. Disturbed ground, bare patches. They really like well-drained soil. And then there are others that nest above ground in pithy stems and hollow stems. And then others still that will build their own nest. So solitary wasps, like mason wasps will, collect soil and then store water in their crop and mix it together and build these pots. Or mud daubers that'll build cylinders. 

Jennifer: And then, of course, the social wasps that will nest on paper, which is really tremendous, and they'll find a source of wood, or like plant fiber. And comb those fibers off and mix them with water to create this paper. And then create cells which, you know, start out circular and compress to form honeycomb shapes. And for paper wasps they can just be a little, kind of, like an umbrella of cells on a—hanging down on a thin stock.

Jennifer: You know, for hornets or yellow jackets can be giant, papery structures up in trees or down in the ground. So, yeah, they nest in a variety of places. And they're pretty talented architects for little, small insects.

Matthew: Sounds like they are.

Rachel: I have a few used paper wasp nests. And I've collected them over the years. They're just so cool. They're beautiful. Yeah I enjoy finding them. Of course, after they've been used.

Matthew: And I've got an arbor made out of cedar. And that's covered with little tracings where the wasps have taken the fibers off. Because it's just a little more silvery in all those little spots.

Rae:  We also have gall wasps that are inserting their eggs into plant material and then a gall forms around them. Or they're actually going after insects that have already made a gall. So they're going for the egg or larva that's inside of a gall, and then they live inside that gall. So you know, there's just a wide variety of where you're gonna find wasps on the landscape.

Rachel: That's so cool. So it's been awesome to hear just about the diversity of wasps. And some really cool examples. We definitely need to have another podcast diving into more of these. But kind of taking a step back. Why are we talking about wasps in the first place? Why should we care about them? And what ecological services do they provide?

Rae: Oh! I would first say they're just so—I mean, I'm a wasp enthusiast. I'm not a wasp researcher, but I just find the diversity of their form and functions so fascinating. So I think, you know, on a base level, it's just really that wonder that we can experience in the invertebrate world and in nature all around us. Probably the next one that I would throw, too, is pest control. So they're critically important for helping control pests in our landscape and reducing insects.

Rae: You know, we've got the parasitoid wasps that are really host-specific. So they can wipe out populations of pest insects because they are just going after that one species. And then our social wasps are huge generalist predators of invertebrates in the landscape. And so they're going after a whole lot of different insects. 

Rae: So while you might not want a social wasp nest right by your door, it might be nice to have one somewhere near your garden, because they'll be able to help out with some of those things that you don't want to see in your garden. So pest control is definitely a huge one.

Rae: Finally, I think they're pretty undervalued as pollinators. So those adult wasps are visiting flowers for pollen and nectar, and while they don't have the similar pollen carrying structures that bees do that make them really efficient pollinators, they are moving flower-to-flower and collecting pollen and doing some pollination. 

Rae: And then there are some really specific relationships with plants that wasps have for pollination. You know, there are some orchids that mimic female wasps, and induce that male wasp to come in and try and mate and whack them with the pollen, and they just get tricked over and over. Ha ha. So that's why we've got some really cool orchids. So yeah, just lots of reasons why we should be loving wasps, and Jenny's ready to tell you some more.

Jennifer: Yeah, just one more. But I love that Rae mentioned pollination. And one undersold example of wasps and pollination is they're really important for milkweeds. Many of the solitary wasps that visit milkweeds visit for their really very sugary nectar. But they're large enough so that their legs can fit into the slit that pulls out the pollinia.

Jennifer: And they don't get their legs caught in that slit, like some flies do, and even some honey bees do. So they can be very important from milkweed pollination, too. But one last thing, because Rae did an amazing job covering all those services, but they also contribute to soil health. Many of the species of wasps dig to build their nest, and even if their nests are fairly shallow, that can move nutrients and mix nutrients.  Some wasps will actually dig deep. Like the scoliid wasps that target scarab beetle larva in lawns, for example, they will somehow—through chemical attraction, I'm not sure—they search lawns for their hosts, and they find them underground, and they will dig down to find that scarab larva, and then lay their eggs on it. So they are, they're powerful diggers, and that can help aerate the soil and mix nutrients, so that's an important role, too. So it's important not to overlook the value of wasps.

Rae: And finally, I will say, I think we owe a debt to wasps for human communication. It's believed that the invention of paper was inspired by paper wasps, by seeing them macerate that plant material and make these paper nests. And also, I was reading today that a lot of our early inks were made from tannins produced by oak galls, which are made by wasps.  So, next time you pick up a book, thank a wasp for their contribution.

Matthew: And for a moment I thought you were going to say they taught us how to talk, but you went in a different direction, which is good, so.

Jennifer: There are some that have methods of communication through stridulation, that make sounds. And we don't know a lot about those. But yeah.

Matthew: We opened this episode with a comment about wasps needing a PR makeover and I think you've done a great job.

Rae: Oh, thank you!

Rachel: Good job.

Matthew: I think we can come out from the end of this going, “Wow wasps! How amazing.” Do you think there's like a most misunderstood wasp? Or do you think there's another wasp that really, has this—you know, deserves to have its story told? Or even your favorite wasp?

Rae: Oh, that's a tough one.

Jennifer: We did talk about some misunderstood ones. That's good. I do have—this is a good one to talk about. We haven't talked about yet. The velvet ants which are type of wasp. This is a group that are—they can be kind of small, but also an inch in size. And they do often—the females are often wingless, and they're found on the ground. They're really diverse in drier areas. And they're very fuzzy and brightly colored—red, orange, black. So really warning colors and they are all—one of the common names for them is cow killer. 

Jennifer: They do like a massively powerful sting. And they have a really hard exoskeleton and those—the very powerful sting and the hard exoskeleton—is because they often enter the nests of other invertebrates, especially bees, some other wasps, and lay their eggs inside. So they are prepared to be defensive, as other stinging insects. So they're just a really interesting group. And they're gorgeous when you see them, but you don't want to pick them up.

Rae: I'll go down a couple of roads. One, I think are the spider hunters, which I think are just fascinating—that they are, you know, paralyzing spiders and provisioning their nest with spiders. But I would give them a shout out to all of the people who are afraid of spiders, or who despise spiders, which is a whole other thing that I—you know, I also love spiders. But if you don't like spiders, you know, there's these wasps that are going after, you know, lots of spiders to provision their young.

Rae: And then one of the wasps that sort of sent me down the wasp enthusiasm trail was—it's not a named species. It's a gall-forming wasp. And it has a relationship with skeleton plant, which is a common prairie plant in my area. And they'll just be this this sort of like a stick-like—almost like a pencil plant like you might see as a house plant, but it's, you know, a wild plant. 

Rae: And I had only ever seen them covered in galls, all of these little balls all over these plants. And I thought that was a diagnostic feature of the plant. But I came—I saw one without one day, and I went, "Well that's so strange." And I did a little research and found out it's actually this gall-forming wasp that only lays its eggs in skeleton plant. And so that was just such a cool thing to witness. And now, whenever I see one, you know, I have to cut one open to show everyone what's going on. And it's just fascinating.

Rachel: Rae, can you explain what a gall is? Really quick, just for listeners who may not know what that term means?

Rae: Yeah, it's when something is inserted into the plant—and usually there's some hormones also involved—that cause the plant to kind of thicken or swell around that. So yeah, it'll just look like little balls on plants. It can be on the stems. It can be on leaves. And it can be a variety of reasons for galls to form. Very commonly, it's flies or gall wasps.

Jennifer: And the wasps just live inside and feed on the plant juices. And then when they're ready to be adults, after they go through the larval and pupal stage, they chew their way out.

Matthew: A gall that many people may have come across are the oak apples.

Rachel: That's what I was thinking of as well. Are oak trees more known to have galls? Or, that might just be my perception, because that's where I've seen most of them.

Rae: I think here in the plains the golden rod galls might be one that people are more familiar with.

Jennifer: They get big.

Rae: They are cool.

Rachel: So I think the moral of the story is, we want wasps in our gardens and in our yard and in our communities. So how do we attract beneficial insects like wasps to our yards, our gardens, our managed lands and our natural spaces?

Jennifer: Yes. A lot of the same—a lot of the same things that we promote as an organization for other beneficial insects and for bees and other pollinators are strategies that support wasps. So focusing on native plants. Specifically, Rae and I have a short list of plants that are great for supporting wasps, and they often involve plants that have really open floral structures, so that the nectaries are really accessible. Because wasps have short mouthparts. They don't have long tongues like bees do.

Jennifer: So native plants are really key, not only for providing nectar for the adults, but also for the plant materials that wasps might use in their nest construction. So some might nest in the stems, just like some above-ground-nesting bees do. 

Jennifer: It's important to maintain accessibility to the soil for ground-nesting wasps. So patches of bare ground, even if they're small, can be really beneficial. But just making sure not to use too much bark mulch or too much plastic mulch.

Jennifer: Using pesticides—reducing or eliminating pesticides whenever possible—or using them in a very targeted way. That reduces the impacts to non-target species and is really critical. Wasps are really sensitive to pesticides, too, and they don't recover quickly.

Rae: So they rely on that additional insect prey. So they have that extra layer of needing, you know, insects in the landscape.

Jennifer: Yeah, that's a that's a really good point, too, Rae. If you've got, for example, a prey that we might call some sort of pest insect. It's been exposed to pesticide. Sometimes there can be effects on whatever predates on that. So that's another method of exposure for pesticides, just aside from direct contact or exposure through systemic chemicals and pollen and nectar. 

Rae: Soil disturbance. Sort of less in our home landscapes, and thinking more of, you know, bigger agriculture. Minimizing that tillage.

Matthew: We're get to the wrap-up stage now. This has been really great. To be honest, I've learned a lot from talking with you today, which is great. And I'm sure our listeners will as well. And so we get to our last question, which is one of our favorite ones.

Matthew: In in this case, what is your most memorable experience with an invertebrate?

Rae: That's a tough one—as well—I feel like I've said that many multiple times throughout this discussion. So I will—I think probably one of the first times I, you know, thought a lot more about insects—I used to work as a canoe guide and kind of the boundary waters area of Northern Minnesota, a lake in the woods. And we watched a dragonfly emerge from that terrifying, you know, larval stage, right on the edge of the water.

Rae: So we watched it for like half an hour as it emerged, and, you know, spread the wings and dried off and flew away. And yeah, that to me was so fascinating to think of something being aquatic and then able to fly. And not really, you know, knowing about that creature, having been taught anything, you know, really in depth about invertebrates. And this would have been, you know, late high school or early college.

Matthew: That is a magical thing to watch.

Rae: And also just the way that you get mobbed by mosquitoes and flies there, and thinking of new aerial predator—come, help!

Jennifer: I can't remember when it happened, but when I was young, like a toddler, my grandma used to make me clothes. And she made me these like culottes because that was really cool in the 80s. And I was playing out in the garden. And I did—there was a wasp that got like up in my culottes and it really scared me. 

Jennifer: I don't think I got stung. It was just—like it, startled me. And so for a long time, I did feel, like as a kid, like super cautious of things flying, insects in particular. And I never really, you know—I never really knew why. And then when I did start to get interested in insects, my mom said, “That's really interesting. You really didn't like them when you were young, and ,you know, it all traced back to this time when you were a kid. And I never really thought you were gonna grow out of that fear.” 

Jennifer: And, I did. So, I don't know if that counts. It's not really—.

Rachel: No, it totally does. There is hope.

Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, there is. And I think just spending time outside, you know, being around things that buzz, make noise, and recognizing that you're just—you're there and you're not really influencing their response most of the time, really helped.

Rae: I would be so curious to see what—how our sons would answer this question. Ha ha. 

Jennifer: It's a good topic.

Rae: In like 15 or 20 years, because kids that kids get exposed, man. There is a lot of insect talk in both of our households. 

Jennifer: It's a good question, right? I will say. A couple years ago we had a neighbor that had a cicada killer wasp nest in her yard. And it was just on this slope, and we would walk by it every day. And Theo would watch it come and go, and he loved it. And one day she killed it, and he was outraged. He asked her about it. "Why did you do that? Did you know it wasn't doing any harm?" 

Jennifer: You know, it just comes from a place of like pure admiration of the cool wasp that was eating cicadas. So, I don't know if he remembers that now, though. But it did—it's like in my mind.

Rae: My son's been on a couple of play dates with Mac. Andd he and I will just pick up—like jumping spiders are definitely a favorite. And we'll, you know, we'll be handling the jumping spider, and usually the other kid will get in on it. But the parents are, "No, no, no thank you." So it's really interesting. And my mom was one of those people who to this day is very afraid of spiders. So yeah, it's just interesting.

Rachel: I think, when we ask this question, and folks—of like how they got into studying insects by and large—it's always an experience with an invertebrate that they had, and a lot of them are from childhood, whether it's from a teacher or a parent or a friend. 

Rachel: So I think as moms, you know, exposing your kids to not fear invertebrates, I think is such a powerful tool for the next generations to care about these important animals. And I think for listeners, if you have—we've said this before—if you have kids in your life, get them outside to just observe them. And if you haven't looked at our X Kids program, Google it. It's awesome. But we have all fun characters, including a wasp and a dragonfly talking about all of this. So it's just so important to get kids outside and observing them. I grew up with a mom who was very afraid of insects.

Rachel: Somehow I ended up at Xerces, and now I'm not as afraid of them. Mostly because of Matthew, taking me outside and showing me bees. But it just takes that one person to instill that. And you. And yeah, I think that's really amazing that you're both raising that next generation and teaching them to love them. Because they're important, as we've learned in this episode and all others. 

Rachel: Well, thank you both so much for joining us today. I learned so much. I really wanna learn more about wasps, so we'll definitely have to have some more episodes on wasps. We hope our listeners have enjoyed our time here and again, thank you so much for joining us.

Rachel: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-based nonprofit that works to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us. 

Rachel: If you’re already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast and for show notes go to xerces.org/bugbanter.