Does anyone have experience with Jewel wasps?

[jkinsey]

Hello,
I am looking for some advice on these little guys. I am rearing young Dart Frogs and always looking for new food sources. I would appreciate it if anyone who has knowledge on Jewel Wasps please respond. Any info would be helpful and also where to locate some would be nice too. Thanks a lot.
Josh

 

[vespa_bicolor]

I can only think of two groups/types of wasps under this name; certain large solitary wasps which hunt cockroaches, or the Chrysidae, also known as cuckoo or rubytail wasps. Given the size of dart frogs I guess you mean the latter? However I guess they won't be easy to rear, since they are parasitic and usually very host-specific, and there are many many species in this family, all looking rather similar. As for where to find them, I think looking closely at plants and flowers, you might be able to find them; also looking at the nests of different solitary bees and wasps in your area may be helpful, since they parasitize these.

Hope this helps!

 

[Horrido]

Just out of curiosity, why jewel wasps, and wouldn't you be worried about feeding something to your frogs that could sting them?

 

[danread]

Wow, thats wierd, i just came on to this part of the forum to start a new post asking if anyone has any experience with jewel wasps, and you beat me to it!

I saw a few Jewel wasps (Ampulex compressa) in Bristol zoo yestersday, and i'm really keen to get a few myself. The only place i can find that sells them is in the US (http://carolina.com/), and i'm waiting to find out in they will ship to the UK.

Anyway, if anyone has any experience with rearing these, there is a few questions i'd like to know the answers to. Are they host specific with the species of roach they lay eggs in, or will any species be utilised? What sort of enclosure do they need, i'm guesssing a normal glass tank would be ok? If anyone has kept these (Wade?), i'd like to hear their experiences.

Cheers,

 

[vespa_bicolor]

Hmm well if you mean Ampullex compressa... any medium -large escape-proof enclosure will be fine. And they are easy to feed too... they only need sweet fluid such as fruit juices or honey. But for breeding, I have no experience, so I can't really give much help. I know that this species (or similar types?) in Hong Kong and tropical Asia actually target the introduced worldwide pest species, the American cockroach. Indeed in Hong Kong I often find them in buildings. But it is possible that those elsewhere may target different species or be more host-specific.

By the way, did you take pics of the Bristol zoo's setup? I'm rather interested to see setups for keeping wasps, since they're not commonly kept.

Cheers.

 

[danread]

Hi vespa,

I can't remember if i did take any photos of the setup, i definitely took a few of the wasps though. I'll have a look when i get home tonight and see what i have. They were kept in a large desert-like enclosure, with sand as substrate, and a few large sandstone rocks. I was lucky to see the female actually sting a roach whilst i was there, although she seemed to leave it alone after that.

I'm really keen to get some, they were incredibly mobile on their feet, and were cruising round the tank jumping from rock to rock.

I can't seem to get hold of the UK supplier of Carolina products, does anyone know about the rules concerning shipping something lie a parasitic wasp across to the UK?

Cheers,

 

[Wade]

I don't think Carolina is selling the same species Dan saw in the zoo, here's a link to the actual description- (edit-you will probably need to copy and paste to look at it)

www2.carolina.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?jdeAddressId=&catalogId=10101&storeId=10151&productId=41291&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=11910|12103|12530|12865|13135

From the description, they ship parsitized fly pupae. This may be the species Josh is talking about, since they seem small enough to feed to dart frogs. Seems like you'd have to rear coffin flies as well. Might get kind of tedious. No experience myself, however. The only parasitic wasps I've ever kept are velvet ants, Dasymutilla sp., but I've never succeded in breeding them.

Flour beetles, (Tribolium) might be a good alternte food. Easy to rear, they often turn up in stored grain products weather you want them or not.

Wade