Predatory habits of the grasshopper-hunting wasp Stizus continuus (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) : diet preference, predator-prey size relationships and foraging capacity

In a coastal salt-marsh of Spain, the digger wasp Stizus continuus primarily hunted for grasshoppers of the genus Heteracris, revealing (at least in the period of the study and in this area) this wasp to be almost monophagous. In contrast, grasshoppers of the genus Acrotylus were ignored by the wasps in spite of their high abundance in the environment. We hypothesize that this bias occurred because Acrotylus is found more often on the soil and on grasses, while Heteracris is nearly only found on Sarcocornia bushes, which probably represent the habitat mostly exploited by the wasps for hunting. The greater variance in size of the prey collected by larger females produced weak wasp-prey size correlations. Some wasps were observed to carry in flight prey weighing close to or more than the maximum theoretically possible, suggesting that they have to descend with prey to the nest from the above-soil hunting sites.