The Chalybion californicum is an impressive and beautiful wasp, which can be identified by its blue and black sheen, a narrow petiole (“waist” between thorax and abdomen) and its length of 10 to 23 millimeters.Its range extends from northern Mexico to Southern Canada, although it has been introduced in Hawaii and Bermuda as well.

Size: Up to 40mm Distribution: Found throughout the U.K. The host is often numbed by malaxation, a pinching or crushing of the neck by the wasp’s pincerlike jaws, and paralyzed by the wasp’s sting. Samantha Stoneley, 28, was enjoying … With a black to yellowish slender body, this wasp has long antennae. Also called a wood wasp, this type of wasp has around 150 species and are usually brown, black or blue in color with yellow parts. Though they burrow into wood, carpenter bees don't eat wood like termites do. Carpenter bees tend to nest in a “wide variety of wood,” including partially decayed trees or in structural timber that is exposed, Troyano says. Horntails and wood wasps may have what appear to be very long stingers, but they are unable to sting.

Feeds on healthy pine trees and serves as a vector for a fungus that kills pine trees (APHIS 2008). Lastly, we have the wood wasp. Wasps are typically 1/4 inch to 1 inch long.

The damage to buildings caused by wood wasps is mainly cosmetic, resulting from their exit holes in timber, but also through other substances covering the timber, including plaster, linoleum, carpets, and other flooring materials. Shape. Horntail or wood wasp is the common name for any of the 150 non-social species of the family Siricidae, of the order Hymenoptera, a type of xylophagous sawfly.This family was formerly believed to be the sole living representative of the superfamily Siricoidea, a group well represented in Paleogene and Mesozoic times, but the family Anaxyelidae has been linked to this group as well. The wasp places the host’s body in a mud cell and lays an egg on it.

... roughly the same size as a common wasp …

Most of the wasps do possess a wasp waist that wood wasp lacks.

Females have a long tail-like tube, the ovipositor, for egg laying. They lack venom glands and instead they use this structure, called an ovipositor, to insert eggs into plant tissue, hence the name wood wasp, Davis said.-30-

Sometimes, eggs are not placed in every tube. A species profile for Sirex woodwasp (SWW), European woodwasp, Eurasian woodwasp. These solitary wasps lay eggs themselves, but they will use other insects’ nests to do that, therefore being considered parasitoidal insects. One of the most dangerous pests of conifers. Remote locations, such as the Horn of Africa ... sausage-shaped, and 1.0–1.5 mm (0.039–0.059 in) by 0.2–0.3 mm (0.0079–0.0118 in) in size. The female Great Wood Wasp has a long pointed tube at the back of her body, and this is usually mistaken for a stinging organ.

Wasps in brick walls may also be mason wasps. Ichneumon wasps measure the largest of the parasitic wasps with an adult length of 1/8- to 1 1/2-inches. It is not a wasp at all as it can be clearly seen below that it has no "wasp waist" that all bees, wasps and ants have.

They also have chewing mouthparts (mandibles) to chew prey and other food sources. …

Fossilised wood wasps have been found dating back 160 million years in what is now Kazakhstan.

Wood Wasps. Thread-waisted wasps are typically more than 2.5 cm (about 1 inch) long and are parasitic on insects and spiders. The alder wood wasp gained minor celebrity status after a groundbreaking 1961 film by the naturalist Gerald Thompson. According to BugGuide: “Range Introduced, originally from Europe and Asia. 20-40mm long. A queen wasp’s size. The wasps’ abdomen has a long spike that projects outward, and the females lay their eggs in trees. In fact it's an ovipositor, which she uses to lay her eggs in the trunks of coniferous trees. Habitat Attacks five or more genera of Pinaceae Remarks It tunnels in wood. Wasps range in size depending on their age and species. It is also called the Greater Horntail Wasp or the Yellow Horned Horntail. This is a Giant Wood Wasp, Urocerus gigas. Red and black mason wasps and the four-toothed mason wasp, a black wasp with white stripes at … These species look like a wasp but with distinction, as they have comparatively enlarged and barrel-shaped body with no waist at all. Through wood export, the wasp could spread to East Asia, West Australia and parts of Africa. However, because such excavation requires a lot of energy on her part, a female carpenter bee will often prefer to refurbish an old tunnel to digging a new one. The wasp queen is colored in bright yellow with black stripes, she has a triangular head, a very narrow waist, a long abdomen that ends with a pointing, sharp sting. They may leave behind a few exit holes, but the total number of wood wasps in one home or building is traditionally very limited. The texture or color of their skin can deviate from black to metallic navy blue. Ichneumon wasps are part of the superfamily Icheumonoidea, which may include over 80,000 different species.

The relatively large, solitary mason wasp makes nests in wood, empty beetle burrows and old mud dauber nests.