Odynerus spinipes
species of insect
Odynerus spinipes, the spiny mason wasp, is a species of potter wasp from western Europe. It is the type species of the genus Odynerus, being first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae.
Distribution
Odynerus spinipes is found in northwestern Europe and Scandinavia as far north as central Sweden and south to the Alps and southern France, there is also a record from Kazakhstan. in Great Britain it is found as far north as southern Scotland but there are very few records from Ireland. It is now thought to be extirpated from in Scotland.
Habitat
Odynerus spinipes prefers open habitats and scrub, in Essex it has been mostly found in post industrial sites.
Biology
Odynerus spinipes adults mate soon after emergence and mating is followed by a search for nest sites which are then prepared and the cells provisioned with prey by the females. The prey is weevil larvae of the genus Hyperba (family Curculionidae). The nests are constructed where there are vertical banks of hard earth, usually of clay but sometimes sand is used. The location of the nest is first dampened with water before a group of five to six cells is created immediately behind the vertical face of the bank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Odynerus spinipes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.