Face to Face with Pachodynerus nasidens, the keyhole wasp?

Well. Ray and me have plenty to do this winter. Yes. The first brutal dry norther blew through yesterday, a harbinger or sign of the freezes that are sure to follow apace and intermittently. So it’s a good thing we have taken a great many pictures of Hymenoptera and Diptera. Yes. A good thing because pretty soon there won’t be many insects around. Sadly, they shall all be dead or sleeping.

So Ray and me, alternative to taking pictures, can spend the winter naming the pictures we already have with the lowest taxa name conceivable or possible. That’s right. For example, we have a picture of a Braconid that we would like to get a little lower, like maybe subfamily. But that may be impossible. Science seems to have given up on the confusing superfamily Ichneumonoidea.

The wasp subfamily Eumeninae is well represented at the CB. We have not counted them up yet but there are a great bunch we have pictures of, many identified to species, maybe. Like this one, the keyhole wasp, Pachodynerus nasidens. This is how its face looks. Those yellow eyebrows are the bases of the antennae. Only the anteriors of the antennae are yellow.

Crumby wonders why this particular wasp has a common name. Not many Eumeninae have common names. Why is it called the key hole wasp? Why has it been introduced to oceanic islands? How did it get to Japan?