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The Philadelphia Inquire featured Chuck Holliday, professor of biology, as an expert on Eastern cicada killer wasps Tuesday, Aug. 29.
Holliday was also interviewed about his research by Scott Simon, host of National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition.” The segment will air Saturday, September 2 (check local listings for air time.) An interview with Philadelphia’s KYW News Radio aired on August 29 as well.
“This year has been one of the busiest for the cicada killer wasps, said Chuck Holliday, a biology professor at Lafayette College who studies them,” says the front-page Philadelphia Inquirer article, entitled “About Those Killer WaspsA Scary Swarm – if You’re a Cicada.”
“[Holliday has] been getting e-mail and calls from Texas to Florida and up to Pennsylvania, from people saying their yards are just filled with wasps,” the story continues. “[He] originally studied salt-and-water balance in animals such as crabs but now teaches biology and studies the cicada killers full time. At one point, he had about 5,000 cicada killers from around the world in his office.”
A member of the Lafayette faculty since 1982, Holliday is the recipient of Lafayette’s Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award. An accomplished scholar and mentor to student researchers, he has sponsored student research presentations at various conferences, including the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, Pennsylvania Academy of Science, and Thomas Jefferson University Sigma Xi Student Research Days. In addition to publishing and presenting his own research, he has reviewed many grant proposals for organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, Pennsylvania Academy of Science, and Research Corporation.
“[T]he wasps hunt only cicadas and rarely sting humans. In a few weeks, they’ll all be gone,” says the article, in which Holliday explains the wasps’ behavior. An excerpt follows:
“The cicada killers are like the biggest guy in the bar,” Holliday said. “They won’t bother you unless you walk up and smash them in the face.” And that doesn’t happen much.
“They’re so big, almost nothing bothers them.”
Cicada killers, also known as Sphecius speciosus, have been around as long as their crunchy prey. From the middle of July through the end of August, they appear in backyards east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and south into Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
After mating, which is pretty much the only thing the males do, the females fly among the trees where the cicadas feed.
Once they catch one, they sting it on the underside of its belly. The sting doesn’t kill the cicada; it only paralyzes it.
Then the wasps carry the stunned bug – which often weighs twice as much as they do – to their burrows in the ground.
If the wasp is carrying a male egg, she drops one cicada inside the burrow, lays her egg on it, and seals it up.
Females are bigger, so they get two cicadas to munch on.
“The egg hatches right away and eats the cicada or two,” Holliday said. The bug, though stunned, is alive.
“It’s like Alien,” said the professor. “It’s awful.”
After the grub hatches and has its meal, it creates a cocoon, where it stays until next summer.
Although the wasps appear annually, this year, Holliday said, “has been an excellent one,” perhaps due to the mild winter season.