About Ammophila sabulosa (Linnaeus, 1758)
Ammophila sabulosa (Linnaeus, 1758) is a large, striking solitary hunting wasp, measuring 15–25 mm (0.59–0.98 in) in length. It has a very long, narrow two-segmented waist. Its body is entirely black except the front half of its tail, which is orange. This species can be distinguished from the smaller Ammophila pubescens (12–20 mm or 0.47–0.79 in long) by several features: its waist widens very gradually into the abdominal tail, the pattern of its forewings differs such that the third submarginal cell makes broad contact with the cell in front of it, and the rear end of its abdomen carries a faint metallic blue sheen. Ammophila sabulosa is widely distributed across Eurasia. Confirmed records exist from the southern half of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland; further south in Turkey and Iran; and eastwards as far as the Russian Far East. There are also very few records of this species from India and Japan.
