Smokey-feather Digger Wasp
S7, Throax & Hairy Rear Legs
Ellura
Smokey-feather Digger Wasp
S7 Female, ventral
 
                      
Smokey-feather Digger Wasp (Sphex fumipennis)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Ant Bee Wasps (Hymenoptera)
Family: Mud Dauber & Sand Wasp (Wasp: Sphecidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Smokey-feather Digger Wasp (Sphex fumipennis)
This Photo:     🔍S7 Female, Wing Venation🔎

Thank you Fauna_Mirifica for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
These vary dramatically in size between ~19 to ~24mm (males) & ~25mm to ~31mm (females). This will generally be due to the size of the prey the adults find for the young.
The genders can be easily separated by photographing the antennae. Females have 10 flagellomeres, males have 11. It's always possible the female antennae is broken short, so try to count both. But these have pretty robust antennae and don't seem as susceptible to this as other wasps. While we haven't read it anywhere, the female Sphex we've photographed have very long front leg spines, the males don't.
As such, the female's dig the nest, capture the large orthoptera (crickets, katydids & grasshoppers) prey for the young. The adults feed on nectar. The males choose a flowering bush to feed & look for females to breed with; being very territorial during our observations.
In the field they clearly have a dark blue sheen to their wings, but in the studio (as you can see) they look dark brown.
A simple diagnostic with these is their wings go from mainly dark to almost completely clear at the tips. Unfortunately the one shown here has damaged wing tips; but there's enough info there to see the colour has faded.
Notice the thick, pale hair on the inside of the hind tibia's.
Thank you to Ian Gibbins for the binomial name translation. He said "fumipennis = smokey feather => what the wing looks like... the number of 'n's matters".

Copyright © 2021-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 12-Dec-2021
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.