The hole in the ground confirmed what the wasps had been telling me.
I was walking an area south of the Arkansas River, an area dominated by steppe well grown with tree cholla, a shrublike cactus. Great Plains yuccas, spindly and sparse, accented the mostly grassy lifescape.
Some sunflowers of several species bloomed here and there, and they all hosted an exceptionally large, shiny blue-black wasp with pumpkin orange wings.
That particular wasp is known as a tarantula-hawk because it specializes in preying on tarantulas. If the predator lives in an area, the prey must be there, too.
The hole in the ground was, in fact, a tarantula burrow.
The hole’s diameter was not quite large enough for a ping-pong ball to roll through. The giant earth-wolf burrows I see regularly on Pawnee National Grassland are only half as big.
While my feet walked and my eyes searched, my mind wandered.
During childhood, I was advised by family to avoid wasps no matter what. Stories about their stings were convincing enough, but no matter where I went or what I did — catching butterflies, chasing snakes, climbing trees — wasps always seemed to be there, too.
I did notice they were not all the same. Size, color and color pattern clearly indicated wasps are as different and diverse as the butterflies and the snakes and the trees.
As I matured as a naturalist, wasps kept buzzing into my life in various circumstances. Curiosity got me to reading about them, and learning about them got me to looking for them on purpose. I didn’t want to just read about wasps; I wanted to see them for myself.
I wanted to engage them.
Some people go fishing; other people go “shrooming,” the pursuit of mushrooms; a lot of people go birding. I occasionally go wasping.
I am no wasp expert, but I have certainly learned and experienced enough to comprehend fully how much I do not know about wasps.
Which means I understand wasps clearly enough as a naturalist to offer a serious and meaningful recommendation.
Stop using those yellow plastic hourglass-shaped wasp traps. Stop it!
Collectively, wasps prey on enormous numbers of caterpillars and spiders. Various wasp species specialize on taking just caterpillars or just spiders, and some wasps are very specific about which caterpillar or spider species they take. Not all are picky, but some are.
Additionally, whereas adult wasps feed their offspring with insects or spiders, the adults feed themselves with flower nectar and plant sap. The nectaring makes pollination happen; the sapping can spread fungus spores that result in fungus-infected tree wood that woodpeckers excavate for nesting cavities, which are used by mountain bluebirds in subsequent years.
And wasps themselves become prey for various wildlife including nighthawks and swallows, wrens and phoebes, even some spiders and dragonflies.
The ecological connectivity of wasps is so profound that wasp genocide is nothing either to endorse or to participate in.
Wasps do not exist merely to terrorize you. They matter in the big picture of Life. Abandon your fear; cultivate your curiosity. Leave them be.
