Sunday, April 16, 2006
Feeding and foraging
I gave the wasps two other grasshoppers today. The first was eaten and dismembered on the nest as before. The second was grabbed by one of the wasps, whereby the weight of the grasshopper caused both to fall to the tank floor together. The wasp proceeded to latch on and sting repeatedly, even as the grasshopper dragged it along. The wasp seized it by the antennae to gain leverage and continued attacking, still stinging over and over. Finally, she bit off its head, then proceeded to cut flesh out from the thorax and brought it back to the nest.
At the same time, I had a couple of Vespa velutina hornet pupae, left over from a failed nest relocation for this species. I offered one of them to the colony, and the wasps took it but dropped it, apparently due to the weight. I decided to leave it alone instead of manually offering it to them, since the workers are now actively foraging. Surely enough, one of them found it and started biting off parts of it; she flew round and round in circles instead of straight back to the nest. I guessed that was to reorientate and memorise the location, and I was right. She returned another six times, eventually reducing the pupa to nothing.
