{"id":86276,"date":"2014-09-03T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=4f0a833a2225a08b24ccb60ef7ffac66"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:59:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:59:45","slug":"the-great-black-wasp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/the-great-black-wasp\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Black Wasp"},"content":{"rendered":"

The great black wasp is my absolutely favorite wasp — for two reasons. First, it is beautiful: jet-black with blue and purple reflections in its wings. Second, it is thrilling to see one because they are so big. I always have a moment before I recognize it, when my subconscious tells me to run away. I know they are not aggressive but it takes a few seconds to overcome my instinct.<\/p>\n

They are called great because they are so big — up to almost an inch and a half long. I see them in my Brooklyn neighborhood from July through October. I’ve written about them before (click here to read an earlier blog) but I saw the one in the photos today and was reminded how much I like them and how pleased I am to see them every summer.<\/p>\n

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The great black wasp, Sphex pensylvanicus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The great black wasp, Sphex pensylvanicus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The great black wasp is my absolutely favorite wasp — for two reasons. First, it is beautiful: jet-black with blue and purple reflections in its wings. Second, it is thrilling to see one because they are so big. I always have a moment before I recognize it, when my subconscious tells me to run away. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":2195805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-WFJrkAsdfXs\/U_pEQiEMncI\/AAAAAAAABzY\/NxKj4IaeAOk\/s1600\/first.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"The Great Black Wasp","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[5317,2450,5318],"class_list":["post-86276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-great-black-wasp","tag-julie-feinstein","tag-sphex-pensylvanicus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2195805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}