3-spotted Sand Wasp: S1, Female, dorsal

Class:

Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)

Order:

Ant Bee Wasps (Hymenoptera)

Family:

Square-headed Wasp (Wasp:Crabronidae) iNaturalist Observation

Species:

3-spotted Sand Wasp (Bembix lamellata)

This Photo:

🔍S1, Female, dorsal🔎

Thank you Kerri-Lee Harris for identifying and David Barros Muniz (David_Bio) for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
1st Live Photo on-line:
~13mm long Female.
We called this a Brown-mullet Sand Wasp, then when processing the images discovered the brown mullet is just sand caught in it's hairs.
It does have 3 pairs of distinct white spots under it's unusually black abdomen though.
Kerri-Lee posted the important diagnostic features & locations of S1 for us:
"This is an excellent match for B. lamellata, including:

high centre of vertex (level or just exceeding height of the eyes)
front basitarsus slender, narrowly blackened along the outer margin, with 7 amber pecten spines
clypeus protruding, but gently rounded in profile; wholly pale yellow-white
mandible strongly curved apically
metasomal bands interrupted medially, the one on T1 nearly straight, those T2-4 wider and sinuous
lateral white spots on S2-4
large yellow spot on mesopleura

Overall, the colour pattern matches, as does the size. And the distribution too, which includes inland areas of southeastern SA and western Victoria."

It's important to note that Kerri-Lee's notes on features are related to each specific photo series. She has made a more complete Worksheet available on her website to further help separate Bembix wasps to species.

Kerri-lee later said on someone else's observation that "Males dig shallow sleeping burrows", so a digging bembix isn't necessarily a female.

This species is

Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.

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