Giant Insects In New Jersey

[littleblackduck]

Huge insects destroy 40 foot tree



Wednesday, September 24, 2003


By JACK HUMMEL
Staff Writer

MILLVILLE -- What's 9 or 10 inches long with the wing span of a small bird and bores six to 10 holes in a straight line in a tree?

That's what Janet Hanson wants to know.

And even though the Carmel Road resident made a couple dozen phone calls Tuesday afternoon, she still doesn't know.

"I think they're some kind of mutant wasps,'' said Hanson after the 40-foot tree on her property fell down and revealed the creatures.

"I've never seen anything like them,'' she whooshed. "I've been on this farm for 43 years and the leaves on this tree were flourishing in July and something killed it.''

But what?

"Their tails open up like a fan,'' said Hanson. "Their bodies are 5 or 6 inches long and the tail that looks like a stinger is just as long.''

And then there's the mother of them all.

"It must be the queen,'' said Hanson. "It's black and it's the biggest of them all.''

Hanson's sister from across the street called her to tell the tree was down at 2:45 Tuesday afternoon.

She went out and discovered the huge bugs and immediately starting making phone calls.

"The first person from the county health department said it was my tree and my problem,'' said Hanson.

The second one told her to go out and spray them.

"Spray them!'' gasped Hanson. "I don't even know what they are. I'm 50 years old and applying for disability. I'm not able to do that.''

Then they told her to catch one, put it in a jar and they recommended a local biologist who could take a look at it.

A neighbor actually went out with a jar and captured one.

"But the biologist had already left,'' said Hanson. "So I'll take it in (this morning).''

They also asked her to take pictures.

"I'll do better than that,'' said her son, Christopher. "I'll videotape 'em.''

And that's where it stands.

The mystery, not the tree.

Like she told the health department, "Lady, it's a 30- or 40-foot healthy tree that has been destroyed by something that I don't even know what they are.''

 

[littleblackduck]

This is probably the culprit

I couldn't find one page that had all of the information in one place but the behaviour, range, size and appearance of the GIANT ICHNEUMON WASP matches the critter almost perfectly, although the estimate of the size of the giant insects seen in the newspaper article is, as usual, quite high.

 

[ginoide]

also because, as i found on a website,


The ichneumon wasp (pronounced: ick-new-men) has a special kind of "tail" that is used like a drill, not a stinger. The wasp drills a hole deep into the wood close to where a wood-eating insect is tunneling. Then, the wasp lays an egg in the hole. When the egg hatches, the young wasp will eat the wood-eating insect

 

[CallMeKenneth]

Thought I'd post a couple of my photo's.
This is the Horntail, or Woodwasp (Uroceras gigas), which is about 45mm long, and lays its eggs in dead trees, using its ovipositor to drill into the timber. The larvae feed on the timber, taking a couple of years to reach full size before pupating. When the adult emerges from the pupa, it then chews its way out of the tree trunk, leaving a large emergence hole. They are found in Britain and Europe, and despite their appearance, are quite harmless

 

[CallMeKenneth]

And this one is the Ichneumon Wasp which parasitises it (Rhyssa persuasoria), which is even longer, but much more slender and delicate looking.

 

[Yithian]

I used to own a woodwasp that had been caught in resin in the act of depositing it's eggs.

 

[littleblackduck]

Follow-up on New Jersey Story

Big isn't so bad

Thursday, September 25, 2003


By MATTHEW RALPH
Staff Writer

MILLVILLE -- The large wasps that bore holes through a tree on Carmel Road most likely did not cause the 40-foot tree to fall, an agriculture agent at Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Cumberland County said Wednesday.

The wasps do not pose a health risk to humans, but are still capable of leaving a painful sting, he said.


Though he is waiting on confirmation from an entomologist that a sample brought into the extension office by Janet Hanson is in fact an ichneumon or parasitic wasp, Extension Department Head James Johnson said he believes the wasps appear to be members of the ichneumon.

"There are a thousand or more types of ichneumon wasps, so we brought the sample to an entomologist in order to identify specifically what type it is," Johnson said.

"They are more of a nuisance than they are a problem," Johnson said.

Hanson first noticed the wasps after the tree on her Carmel Road property fell. She was immediately concerned when she spotted the wasps because of their size.

"They are scary," she said. "I've never seen anything like them and I'm concerned with my grandchildren going near them. I'm also concerned about what they might do to the other trees on my property."

Hanson made several phone calls to local agencies Tuesday but was unable to find immediate answers to her questions.

The only advice given to her was to spray, but she held off on acting before knowing what it was she was dealing with.

Turns out, she did the right thing.

"We always recommend to find out what the problem is before you go out and start spraying," Johnson said, noting that if the wasps are indeed parasitic or beneficial insects as they are also called, spraying will not be recommended.

"They won't be around for very long," he said. "They don't live that long as adults."

Wasps like this are fairly common in the region, but usually don't grow to the size of those Hanson discovered in her yard, Johnson said.

The sample taken to Johnson Wednesday had a body more than an inch long and was close to five inches long when including the antennae and long ovipositor.

The ovipositors are used to penetrate wood and lay the eggs, which then feed on a host insect.

Though the long ovipositors leave deep borings in the trees, Johnson said the wasps did not cause the tree to fall.

"I don't believe in this case the wasps had anything to do with this tree falling down." he said.

Still, Hanson is puzzled how a tree she said was flourishing in July suddenly died and is now the victim of stormy weather.

"The tree was fine in July," she said. "I really never even thought to notice that the tree was bare because I haven't mowed the grass in a while."

Source:
More on Giant Wasp

 

[CallMeKenneth]

If they were ichneumons (which seems likely) then they will have been searching for Woodwasp larvae ( or its american counterpart) within the treetrunk, then using its long ovipositor to bore into the tree (this is what the one in my photo is doing). If N. American woodwasps have a similar ecology to the British ones, then the tree was already dead when it was colonised. It may have been an adult woodwasp which was described as the queen in the original report, as it was so much bigger than the others.
The report also demonstrates how easy it is to exaggerate the size of unfamiliar animals - to give another example of this, I manage a nature reserve, which has, amongst other things, a population of Southern Hawker dragonflies which breed in the pond. During the summer, I frequently encounter visitors who tell me they've just seen a massive dragonfly "at least 8 inches across the wings!". When I tell them the true size is about half that, they don't believe me and insist they must have seen something different. I imagine that more than a few ABC sightings are of domestic moggies which have been similarly inflated.