Dobbsworld
14-11-2005, 02:32
I've seen a number of wasps crawling sluggishly around the garden in the cool autumn breezes. I took the time to look at three of them closely yesterday morning, in all their chitinous glory.
Some time between my inspection that morning and my return home from out-of-house chores, one of the wasps had been lightly smushed on the patio stones.
This garden of ours is on a second-storey patio, with no easy way on or off the patio. There was no footprint. The wasp had not been flattened, either. Looking closer, I found that the upper plating of it's thorax had been damaged. So I wondered, what killed it?
I thought I'd throw the question open. Could it have been a bird or squirrel, trying a nibble of a slow-moving bug and turning up their nose at it? Could it have been airbourne and somehow fell to it's death? Could it have been set upon by opportunistic ants?
Whodunnit, and how?
Some time between my inspection that morning and my return home from out-of-house chores, one of the wasps had been lightly smushed on the patio stones.
This garden of ours is on a second-storey patio, with no easy way on or off the patio. There was no footprint. The wasp had not been flattened, either. Looking closer, I found that the upper plating of it's thorax had been damaged. So I wondered, what killed it?
I thought I'd throw the question open. Could it have been a bird or squirrel, trying a nibble of a slow-moving bug and turning up their nose at it? Could it have been airbourne and somehow fell to it's death? Could it have been set upon by opportunistic ants?
Whodunnit, and how?