May 27th, 2006
what is it?
Okay! Here’s a post for the entomology sleuths among you. I shot this photo around noon on May 24th, but haven’t had time to look around for an ID for this creature. As I’m off to do some hiking around for the weekend, I decided to toss this out to see if anyone might know what this is. At first glance, due to its mammoth size, I thought it might be some kind of sphecius wasp, but I don’t think the anatomy is right.
UPDATE: I’m home from hiking, and gave this insect some more thought while I was out and about. I decided to try looking at sawflies instead of bees or wasps, and bingo… it’s definitely a sawfly of some kind — looks like it’s some kind of Cimbicidae – probably a Cimbex species. I found one that looks very much the same on BugGuide.net. And another photo from a website called Zooex.Baikal.ru from Russia. It looks quite similar to my photo. They show it as Cimbex femorata. There’s a story about Cimbex sawflies to add to this, but I think I’ll do it up as a new post later tonight. Read on for more information about this very robust insect.
Here are some specifics:
The body was really thick, and with a very oddly segmented abdomen (bumpy looking). As mentioned, the insect was quite large – probably a bit over 3 cm. long. The thorax was massive and sort of muscular looking, and the “waist” was thick, unlike most wasps. If one was looking for the insect equivalent of The Incredible Hulk, this would be it as it seemed a bit unreal — so muscular and almost plastic looking. The head was very broad, and it had really weird yellow, clubbed antennae. Its big, smoky-black wings were very conspicuous when it was flying — which is actually when I first noticed it. I followed it until it landed on a leaf and then approached to take some photos. It was one of those insects that’s very “aware”, and as I tried to get in close with my camera, it would turn to look right at me. Not knowing if it was capable of inflicting a sting, I didn’t push my luck too far. I got a few decent shots with the camera at a distance of about a foot – so not quite so close or detailed as I would like, but not bad. Unfortunately, the sunlight was very strong, so the photo is kind of blown, but there should be enough details there to get some idea of what this thing might be (click on image to see a larger view).
So, there you go insect sleuths. Don’t be shy! Post your best guesses and I’ll check back to see what you came up with when I get home. (Edit: I’m still interested in narrowing down the ID on this sawfly, so it you have any idea, please feel free to post a comment).
bev
Tags: Cimbex sawfly, Cimbex femorata, Cimbicidae