This Solitary Wasp Is Indifferent to Humans, Cruel to Spiders, and Neglectful of Her Children

Each month, we get to know one of the state’s many wonderful and quirky critters .

Latin name: Sceliphroncaementarium

Size: Up to one inch long

Habitat: Statewide (including my deck)

At first I wanted to kill it. The mud dauber set up shop this spring on the frame of the door leading to my deck, coming and going through a rip in the screen. Its nest—a fist-size, patchwork clump of mud—grew daily, and every time I stepped outside, I had to do some evasive moves to avoid the wasp. I worried it was merely a sentry and more (a colony, perhaps) would soon join it. But as time went by without further arrivals and without a sting, the wasp became my wasp. I came to see it as a gentle presence, like a benign ghost, and almost certainly female. I later learned that I was right: Only fema