Europe eastwards into temperate Asia, with records on Madeira
Fine-art photographic collection
Ectemnius sexcinctus
A dead-wood wasp that stocks underground-style nurseries with paralysed flies.
About this species
Ectemnius sexcinctus(Fabricius, 1775)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Ectemnius sexcinctus is a solitary crabronid wasp. Females excavate branching nests in dead wood and provision each brood cell with captured flies, including hoverflies and calypterate flies, before sealing the cell for the developing larva.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Crabronidae · Ectemnius
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe eastwards into temperate Asia, with records on MadeiraBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Sunny woodland edges, old trees, logs, posts and other dead wood suitable for nesting.
Adults are active in warm sunny weather and visit flowers.
Adults take nectar; larvae are provisioned with paralysed flies.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
A female cuts her own tunnel system into dead wood, turning a log or stump into a hidden nursery of separate brood chambers.
Each larva receives a private cache of paralysed adult flies — often hoverflies — carried back to the nest by its mother.
The species ranges far beyond Britain: records extend across Europe into temperate Asia, and it has even colonised Madeira.