On my fascination with insects

I find insects and arachnids pretty fascinating, especially insects of the suborder apocrita (ants, bees, wasps). Even though I find these things pretty cool, they still can scare the crap out of me. I had this idea a long time ago about writing some sort of world building epic based on insects and war, basically because I remember the Army Ants toy line from the 80s, but then the movies A Bugs Life and Antz came out, and kind of killed the dream. But, sometimes I find myself reading about certain types of these insects and trying to fit them into the fictional world I created when I was 12.

Yesterday, I freaked out when I found the largest wasp looking things ever. They were the size of my thumb and they were everywhere. I took pictures.

I looked it up when I got home, and it turns out it is a wasp from the tribe Gorytini, and the genus Sphecius. The Cicada Killer Wasp is mostly harmless, which doesn't make its one to two inch size any less terrifying.

One of the pictures I took clearly shows the giant wasp holding onto a cicada. This particular wasp hunts cicadas and uses them to breed more wasps. So, I basically captured a Cicada Killer Wasp preparing to use a cicada to make more Cicada Killer Wasps. This is a pretty cool thing to witness, even though at the time, I couldn't fully appreciate it.