Austrogorytes spryi

Workbook


Update: For additional notes & materials developed after this page was written:

Bembicini notes page, with summary table for all genera
Austrogortyes notes page, with summary table for all species

We have seen this species here in past summers, although this is the first year in which I’ve located a nesting site. Based on photo-matching with iNaturalist sightings, I had previously called it Clitemnestra. However, as part of a larger project I’ve just embarked upon (ie improving my skills in crabronid identification), I decided to collect a specimen.

I first spotted the female in the photo above perched on low vegetation (24/2/2023). She flew down to a nest site in a sandy path … just in front of me … and commenced digging open what was obviously an existing nest. She was not carrying prey at the time. All of the images in Panel A are of that individual.

Panel B shows a male photographed nearby, just a few days before. It is clearly the same species.

I’m now confident that the species is not Clitemnestra, but rather Austrogorytes. And I’m also convinced that it is Austrogorytes spryi … a notably variable species, and one that has been recorded Australia-wide (Bohart, 1984).

Crabronidae: Bembicinae: Bembicini: Gorytina: Austrogorytes spryi

The following notes and associated images step through the reasoning behind my identification to genus Austrogorytes. The combination of small size, yellow bands on at least TI-IV, black clypeus, relatively wide ‘face’, striped ‘back foot’, and ‘roughened’ scutum are consistent with Austrogorytes spryi … and, importantly, exclude any of the other 30 candidate species.


For a list of features distinguishing Austrogorytes & Clitemnestra from other Bembicini, see my workbook notes for Austrogorytes bellicosus.

Image adapted from Museums Victoria Collections: https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/specimens/1018362

Fits the descriptions of Austrogorytes spryi, both Turner (1915) and Bohart (1984).

PANEL A: female

[label in collection = 2301K]

PANEL B: male


References

Bohart, R.M. & Menke, A.S. 1976. Sphecid Wasps of the World: A generic revision. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Bohart, R.M. 1984. A revision of the genus Austrogorytes Bohart (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae). Australian Journal of Zoology, 32: 391-412

Turner, R.E. 1908. Notes on the Australian fossorial wasps of the family Sphegidae, with descriptions of new species. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1908: 457-535

Turner, R.E. 1915. Notes on fossorial Hymenoptera. XV. New Australian Crabronidae. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 8 15: 62-96


This is a workbook page … a part of our website where we record the observations and references used in making species identifications. The notes will not necessarily be complete. They are a record for our own use, but we are happy to share this information with others.