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January 5: Mud dauber nests
Jan. 5th, 2011 11:27 amOur barn, which has become quite dusty with disuse over the years since I left home, is a habitat for birds and insects now. Probably some rodents, too, although the farm cat sees to some of them. When I was in there a couple of days ago I found some lovely mud dauber nests. (We tend to say "dirt dauber" around here, but I'll stick to the more general term for this post.)
They're pipe organ mud daubers, and the nests look exactly like the name implies. The main one I found was longer than my hand, with individual "pipes" as big around as my thumb. It's incredible when you think that that whole nest was built by the female out of thousands of tiny balls of mud, which she collected, processed, and formed herself. I didn't want to break open the tubes to investigate, but I believe that inside the tubes are individual cells, each containing an egg and a store of baby food, wasp-style. The pipe organ wasp mother is lucky, because her mate will actually stay and help guard the nest.
Like the yellow jackets I saw in August collecting shrew meat, mud daubers adults drink nectar themselves but collect animal protein for their young, in the form of spiders, which they paralyze and stock inside the cells of their mud tubes for the larvae to eat when they hatch. The various types of mud daubers prey on black widows and black and brown recluse spiders as well as other types that humans have less reason to fear. The mud daubers themselves can sting humans, but almost never do; they're solitary rather than social wasps, and they don't defend their nesting sites aggressively.
One thing I love about the pipe organ nests is how you can see the different types of mud available in the area. Some pipes are greyish, some are tan, and some are rusty clay-red. It looks like the female uses a single source of mud for each individual pipe. Beautiful.
They're pipe organ mud daubers, and the nests look exactly like the name implies. The main one I found was longer than my hand, with individual "pipes" as big around as my thumb. It's incredible when you think that that whole nest was built by the female out of thousands of tiny balls of mud, which she collected, processed, and formed herself. I didn't want to break open the tubes to investigate, but I believe that inside the tubes are individual cells, each containing an egg and a store of baby food, wasp-style. The pipe organ wasp mother is lucky, because her mate will actually stay and help guard the nest.
Like the yellow jackets I saw in August collecting shrew meat, mud daubers adults drink nectar themselves but collect animal protein for their young, in the form of spiders, which they paralyze and stock inside the cells of their mud tubes for the larvae to eat when they hatch. The various types of mud daubers prey on black widows and black and brown recluse spiders as well as other types that humans have less reason to fear. The mud daubers themselves can sting humans, but almost never do; they're solitary rather than social wasps, and they don't defend their nesting sites aggressively.
One thing I love about the pipe organ nests is how you can see the different types of mud available in the area. Some pipes are greyish, some are tan, and some are rusty clay-red. It looks like the female uses a single source of mud for each individual pipe. Beautiful.