So, what was the mystery insect last week?
It is a wasp of the genus Megarhyssa. This particular specimen is a male wasp.
In case you are wondering, that is not a stinger pointing out of its body, but the wasp’s extra-long abdomen. The female wasps have an extremely long, slender ovipositor or egg-laying tube that they use to drill into wood to lay their eggs into the larvae of wood-boring insects. The wasp larvae then eat the wood-boring insect larvae.
In this video, you can see the female wasp pulling her ovipositor out of the wood after laying eggs.
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This is one of those insects that can alarming to look at, but are not harmful at all.
Have you ever seen one?
