Orange Potter Wasp
S13, Female, Wing Venation
Ellura
Orange Potter Wasp
S29, Male, Hindwing Venation
 
                      
Orange Potter Wasp (Delta bicinctum)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Ant Bee Wasps (Hymenoptera)
Family: Potter Wasp (Wasp: Vespidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Orange Potter Wasp (Delta bicinctum)
This Photo:     🔍S29, Male, Forwing Venation🔎
Synonyms: Delta bicinctus or Eumenes bicincta

Thank you Brian Dagley for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Adelaide Hills and elsewhere
~22mm long.
Large orange wasp with black stripes
The females make a mud nest and fill it with a larva for it's offspring to feed on.
The nest is a series of individual cells.
They gather water at ponds and mix it with dirt to create mud. You can see on S9's nest, she got dirt from different locations as it's different colour.
Note the faces of S15 & S16 look quite different. This is due to the labrum (below the clypeus) being movable/hinged, and so is flipped up under the head out of sight in S15.
Their eyes are deeply emarginate, not that you can see easily as the indents are coloured black, like the eyes.
When they fly, they do so with their legs hanging, making them look even larger.
As with all vespid wasps, these have their wings held up when at rest; unlike most inverts who hold their wings along the body at rest.
These are long lived wasps. Taking over 2 months to build her nest.
While looking similar to Abispa sp, these can be easily separated by their long, narrow waist.
We have just discovered the females (with vertical orange head stripes, between the eyes) look very different to males (horizontal). The males look similar to D. philantes. But Marco explained the difference between the species is in the waist. He said "The diagnostic character lies in the shape of first tergum. In Delta bicinctum it reaches its maximum width in the anterior half, so in dorsal view it appears to have posteriorly converging sides, while in lateral view it is nearly flattened in the middle and then it's depressed apically. In Delta philantes the maximum width is reached at apex, therefore the sides appear evenly diverging from base to apex in dorsal view and it is not flattened and depressed in lateral view". He also said "The curled/hooked antennae are present in nearly all male Eumeninae, excluding very few genera like Symmorphus, some Pterocheilus and Synagris".

Copyright © 2021-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 27-Jan-2021
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.