Ichneumon, Home

Some days, I don't see much out of the ordinary and while there's always something en route that's of potential interest—well, to me, anyway—I'm all too aware that my viewers look askance on natural history repetition, even though, let's face it, nature is always repeating itself. All of which is preface to my confession that the out-of-the-ordinary action often occurs not on a long daylight walk but instead on an after-hours couple of steps out the kitchen door. Tonight was a perfect illustration of that point. As I was listening to the growing swell of the cricket and katydid chorus, I noticed the arrival—how could you help noticing?—of an amazing insect known as an Ichneumon. These harmless, to us, but terrifying looking—the stinger is four inches long... straight out of Stephen King!—wasps are known, in some circles, as "stump stabbers," since the females can often use their amazingly agile ovipositors to probe decaying wood for insect larvae into which mom will insert an egg that will hatch to feed off the unfortunate victim. This insect, which probably carries the longest ovipositor in our area, is known as Megarhyssa macrurus, the aptly named Giant Ichneumon Wasp. Glad she's not interested in our species.