Flying scorpion? No.

I'm sure this has happened to you. You're walking along in the woods and you see something black and wispy go by out of the corner of your eye. You naturally think, "Oh, there goes a damselfly, a mayfly, or a crane fly," but when it lands on a nearby plant you realize that its something much more sinister. That happened to me in late September this year and all I could get was this fuzzy photo before it flew away.

Fortunately, I was gardening a few weeks later, in October, and my friend found another one. This time it was not flying because it was probably too cold outside, so I was able to get in close for a really nice picture.

These are pelecinid wasps (Hymenoptera: Pelecinidae) in the genus Pelecinus and they are actually not that sinister...unless you are a june beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae Phyllophaga). That long "tail" is really just their abdomen, which all insects have. Their abdomen is longer and skinnier than most because they use it to dig into the soil in search of june beetle larvae (AKA white grubs). Once they find a white grub, they lay an egg on it. Eventually the egg hatches and the wasp larva attacks and kills the grub, feeding off of its corpse until it matures.  Then the wasp larva will pupate right there in the soil and emerge next summer as an adult wasp. 

Because of their long curved abdomen, pelecinids do sort of resemble scorpions which has led some people to call them scorpionflies. However, that name belongs to another group of insects in the order Mecoptera, the true scorpionflies. Of course, neither are flies (order Diptera) or scorpions, and scorpions are not even insects. Scorpions are arachnids (like spiders, harvestmen, and mites). Whew, glad we cleared that up. 

Regardless of how scientists classify them, pelecinid wasps attack and kill white grubs, which can be a nuisance to gardeners and homeowners, so we here at Crunchy Segments classify them as beneficial insects. Keep up the good work pelecinids!