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When you hear cicadas sing, Cicada Killer wasps are not far away.
After cicadas emerge from underground in July, adult wasps also emerge, after overwintering underground as larvae.
Male wasps dig their way out first, leaving exit holes like those on the right of the photo at right.
The larger holes on the left of the photo are new burrows dug by females, for the next generation of larvae.
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Male Cicada Killers are large wasps, about 3 - 3.5 cm in length, staking out territories no bigger than a small bedroom
They often perch on a low object and orient themselves to watch for females.
Often they take to the air to patrol their little fiefs, chasing anything that flies to see if it is a rival male or a virgin female.
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Males are totally harmless to humans; they possess no stingers at all.
If you offer your hand, they may climb aboard to see if this perch has a good view, again orienting themselves to scan their territory.
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Females are bigger, reaching 4 cm in length. They do possess a stinger to inject venom into cicadas, paralyzing the prey.
They emerge about 2 weeks after the males, and will mate only once in their life.
The male patrolling the area where she emerges gets first shot at mating with the virgin female, end-to-end style.
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Other males may try to break up the pair, riding her piggy-back style.
The female's stinger is safely occupied in this position, and the couple may take your hand as a haven from competing males.
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After mating, the female excavates a burrow, and goes cicada hunting.
When she has paralyzed a cicada (often bigger than she), she drags the immobilized prey down her burrow, and lays an egg upon the cicada.
The larva that hatches will feast on the living flesh of the cicada until reaching pupa stage, then will pupate over the winter.
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You may also see "satellite flies" outside a Cicada Killer burrow, waiting for the wasp to store a cicada in her underground chamber.
When the wasp leaves, this tiny fly goes down the tunnel, and lays a live larva in the living cicada, and the larva eats the cicada.
The confrontation between wasp and fly females in the photo at right shows the relative sizes of these natural enemies.
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Cicada Killer exit holes may also be re-used by other ground-nesting insects.
This little Digger Wasp (a smaller relative of the Killer) wanders around some of these exit holes.
Soon she finds one and dives into the hole, using it as her little burrow.
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These photos were taken along a sidewalk trail along Sugarland Road on the east side of the park.
The trail is lined with trees where cicadas sing.
The ground is a weedy patch with sandy soil, littered with scat of uncertain canine origin, but is Cicada Killer heaven.
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Peter Chen 2.0