A Potter Wasp has made four pots on this wooden column. The topmost pot is still in making.
Soon the wasp will lay single egg in the pot, and then it will place few paralyzed caterpillars inside the pot. When the larvae hatch from the egg, it will feed on the caterpillars and after making a cocoon, it will break out of the pot as a fully formed wasp.
The adults feed on nectar and pollinate flowers. As they hunt caterpillars for their larvae, they are an efficient pest control. They aid farmers in both pollination and pest control. They rarely sting.
It also experiments with new building materials. This pot was made using mostly cement from nearby construction sites, but it decided to abandon it and stick to its instinctual habit of using mud for obvious reasons such as thermal comfort and softness of material for the larvae.
All Photographs by Shree Dave
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