Wasp Beetle

Name: Wasp Beetle

Scientific name: Clytus arietis

Category: Minibeasts

Nature Stars: 50

What are nature stars?

About: A small, parallel-sided long-horn beetle, about 2cm long. Black with yellow bands on the body, perhaps mimicking a wasp. Larvae live in warm, dry, dead wood such as fence posts and dead branches, and the adults can be found on flowers along woodland rides and hedgerows during the summer.

How to identify: There are several other black and yellow longhorn beetles, but most have more pointed bodies and longer antennae.

Where: England and Wales, rare in Scotland.

Natural Superpowers

• Predator: 10
• Agility: 60
• Rarity: 50
• Cute factor: 30
• Traveller: 40

Fantastic fact: Wasp Beetles sometimes hatch out of firewood that has been brought in to the house to dry over the winter.

Photograph credit: Photo credit tbc