As the name implies, these capture spiders and leave them for their larvae to feed upon. The adults as you can see from these images feed upon flower nectar, in this case Boneset once again.
Blue-black Spider Wasp– Anoplius sp. on Boneset -Eupatorium perfoliatum
One identifier for this genus is the Snidely Whiplash-like antennae curl after death but this one was very alive but possibly dying as it fed. Then again, maybe just a bit of bitter nectar.
Stephen Gingold Nature Photography Blog 
I remember Snidely, almost as unforgettable character as Dudley Do-right.
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Don’t forget about Horse and Nell’s apparent preference for him. Poor Dudley.
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Ever the romantic, I kept hoping, in vain, that Nell would resolve the whole emotional issue and eventually cry out, “I’ll save you, Dudley!”
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Look at the efficiently hexagonal packing of those boneset buds.
When I was a little kid and would watch Ernie Kovacs on television, one of his characters was Auntie Gruesome. I was too young to know that gruesome wasn’t a name but a word, much less what it meant. Along those lines, I wonder how many kids who saw Snidely Whiplash knew that snidely was a real word.
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I loved the Ernie Kovacs show and remember clearly that it was called Take a Good Look, and that it frequently featured the Nairobi Trio (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=416o9b_pjQk)! Do you remember them? (Of course you do–who could ever forget them?!)
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Of course I remember the Nairobi Trio. I’m pretty sure that when I watched it I didn’t know there’s a place called Nairobi in Kenya.
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Yup. My family always camped out in front of the TV for The Ernie Kovacs Show. I knew about gruesome but snidely was a word I had never heard before. Kind of wish I didn’t know about it now.
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Snide is one of many negative sn- words loosely related to the nose, including the idea of looking down your nose at someone. Some others are sneer, snigger, snarl, snark, snort, snicker, snipe, snoop, snub, sneak .
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Aw~Yes I prefer to think it just hit a sour patch.
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It kept sampling the wares so not dead yet. 🙂
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It made me think it might be worth watching~perhaps that was a mistaken “fact” that you could correct.
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Great shots, and I like the idea of the antennae curling when the wasp hits a sour patch.
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Thanks, Robert. Yeah, kind of what our lips do when we taste something a bit off.
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Interesting about the antennae… do you think that little ant is eyeing it as a possible carcass? Nothing is wasted in nature.
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It could be but would require a few of her pals to help bring the treasure home.
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One of my readers posted a gallery of portraits of men with mustaches grown and maintained with pride. Some of them looked like your wasp’s antennae, and we exchanged a few words about Snidely Whiplash.
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My mustache is okay, but I’d love to have something nice and thick and with character like those. At first I thought Salvador Dali but his isn’t a real curl, more swept up.
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Nice. This brings back memories of tarantula hawk wasps out in Arizona, and of course the tarantulas, as well. Amazing species, though I’d hate to be a spider when the wasp is in town.
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Especially a wasp with hungry young ones to feed. I Googled those and they are striking. Everything has a nemesis in Nature. Even tarantulas.
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Great images Steve! The Snidely Whiplash reference brings back memories from long ago!
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Thanks, Reed. Better to have childhood memories of The Bullwinkle Show than predatory wasps.
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Did you see this about the rediscovery of an orchid in Massachusetts?
https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2020/08/24/crested-fringed-orchid-masswildlife-discovery
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Yes, I read about it back then and am a member of a Facebook wildflower group that shared the article as well. Thanks for mentioning it. I hope they didn’t give too specific hints describing the habitat that will allow others to find it and damage follow. Every once in a while I notice that someone has cut or dug the yellow lady’s slippers that I visit in the sanctuary near here where they grow.
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Your boneset seems to be a wonderful stage for your wonderfully photographed insects. . . . Ah, Ernie Kovacs. I miss him.
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It is and a popular nectaring hole as well. I miss a lot of the old programs but we do have YouTube for many of them.
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I’m cheering for the boneset – it’s the backdrop for so many great shows at your place, right? Good for you for getting those antennae, so cool. One can look at both photos and see how they curl – it’s kind of a kinky curl, eh? 😉
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Ha ha – now I see Linda talking about the boneset, too. She and I are on the same wavelength.
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Two great minds. 🙂
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I should create a page of just boneset visitors as I bet I have nearly a hundred different species…well a lot anyway. I am glad that this was a living wasp with those curls and not a dead one. Boneset makes a good background for the insects but I have yet to make a shot of the plant/flower itself that I am thrilled with.
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Wow, yes, that would really be interesting to see – it would be a celebration. It does make a nice backdrop. I always enjoy the way every tiny bit of those individual flowers is in focus and carefully rendered. I can imagine a nice photo of a group of them, maybe from a distance, maybe lass sharp. They have a sort of fuzzy quality that you could play up. That’s the opposite of what happens in the insect photos but it would be a nice complement. Is it too late yet? Maybe not, I remember they do last. (It’s another familiar wildflower from my past that doesn’t grow out here).
I just google-image-searched Boneset and didn’t see anything like what I’m imagining but I did see photos of the leaves, which I’d forgotten about. I was always excited by that piercing of the stem. The architectural quality of it. Make sense? 😉
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That will have to be something to pursue next year. They are fairly spent and brown now although the leaves could still be a project. The way the leaves surround the stem…thus the thoroughwort moniker, is one of the identifying field signs. One picture that comes to mind might be a selective focus shot.
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If you’re inspired by those interesting leaves, that would be nice, but I’m sure there are many other subjects calling out to you these days. 🙂 I didn’t realize the connection to that name and I just read about it – “through” was not previously distinguished from “thorough” so the stem goes “thorough” the leaf. I would have thought it was Thoroughwort because the plant was used for so many medicinal purposes. I bet Steve S. wouldn’t make that mistake! 😉
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You bet there are many other things to catch my eye but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t include some leafy abstracts. We’ll see. I am about to start 10 days of me time so the mornings will be filled with photography and the afternoons preparing for winter’s cold by finishing the wood splitting and loading the garage.
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Ah, it’s great to hear you have all that time off! Enjoy! Well, the mornings anyway.
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Thanks. I enjoy the yardwork too although I get tired a little more quickly now. I got a few things accomplished yesterday and more on tap today.
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