{"id":10539,"date":"2026-08-30T11:55:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T11:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/?p=10539"},"modified":"2026-09-02T18:41:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:41:39","slug":"2026-08-meeting-the-fly-hunting-wasp-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2026-08-meeting-the-fly-hunting-wasp-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxy heads and living larders: Meeting the fly-hunting wasp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Known as &#8220;square-headed wasps,&#8221; <em>Ectemnius<\/em> wasps are elite solitary predators built for aerial hunting. Equipped with massive, boxy heads and keen binocular vision, these agile hunters snatch fast-flying flies\u2014like hoverflies and horseflies\u2014right out of the sky. Once captured, the wasp paralyzes the fly with a sting, keeping it fresh inside a rotten wood nest as a living meal for her developing larvae. Females use powerful, tooth-like jaws to chew through tree stumps and fence posts, creating branched tunnels stocked with up to a dozen flies per room. While each female cares for her own brood, they often share nest entrances in dense groups to save digging energy. I met this impressive hunter on a wide meadow near Akalla, Sweden. At first, I mistook it for a sawfly\u2014a species I frequently see in the same meadow\u2014and managed to snap just one quick photo before it zoomed away!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Known as &#8220;square-headed wasps,&#8221; Ectemnius wasps are elite solitary predators built for aerial hunting. Equipped with massive, boxy heads and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[414,82],"tags":[],"countries":[63,76],"order-category":[60,1587,420],"class_list":["post-10539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-omnivores","category-pollinators","countries-europe","countries-sweden","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-wasps-ants-bees-and-sawflies-square-headed-wasps-sand-wasps-and-allies","order-category-insects-wasps-ants-bees-sawflies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10541,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10539\/revisions\/10541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10539"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=10539"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=10539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}