#1359 - Pseudabispa - Fire-tailed Potter Wasp
David Wilson, South-east Queensland.
This genus of potter wasps found in Australia and Papua contains 5 species, with one (Pseudabispa bicolor) subdivided in 4 subspecies. This is probably one of them.
In morphology, size and coloration, Pseudabispa closely resemble mason wasps ( AKA ‘Australian Hornets’ ) in the genus Abispa, and their distributions overlap. Together they’re some of the largest wasps in Australia, but the biology of Pseudabispa is not well known. In 2010, a field study near Katherine, Northern Territory, strongly suggest that P. paragioides females attack and kill female A. ephippium and usurp their nests, and and further insult to injury by then appropriating the cells the late Abispa built, mass provision them with caterpillars acquired by theft from still other nests, and close them with mud taken from the host nest. They seem pretty fussy about who they’re kleptoparasitise too - there were three other species of large solitary wasps they could have harassed at the site, but focused all their attention on the unfortunate Abispa ephippium.
P. bicolor has also been seen around balls of dry mud in the base of hollow trees, that turn out to be very well camouflaged brood cells. But the Chews (of Brisbane Insects) couldn’t tell if the larva they found inside was a Pseuabispa, or another solitary wasp the False Australian Hornet intended to oust.