Dirk wasps have been seen in Austria for over 100 years. A “Krone” reader was probably all the more surprised to have one in his own garden in Krenglbach (Upper Austria). He filmed the rare guest and sent the video to the editors.
In it, the dagger wasp sits on flowers and cannot be disturbed. With a length of up to 4.5 centimeters, the red-headed dagger wasp or yellow-headed dagger wasp is the largest wasp species in Europe. Most notable are the somewhat reddish bristles on the back of the head, as the conservation organization describes on its website. It is sometimes confused with the bristly dagger wasp, which also has a black body with yellow markings, but differs in having a black head and smaller body size.
Usually harmless
The female dagger wasps do sting, but are usually harmless. Just don’t feel pressured. The rare animal is also under species protection, so it should not be killed. Only two species occur in Europe, originally the animals are mainly found in southern Europe, such as in Italy, Spain and Greece. There they can be seen mainly in the summer months, in the winter they pupate. In Austria, the nectar-eating animals are mainly seen on blue and red-blue flowers. But as the video shows, they don’t suffer from purple flowers either.
“Since the species is still very rare in Austria and the flight time is very short, it is almost impossible to find it by active search,” says Dominique Zimmermann of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. But if many people keep their eyes open, “success is certain.” In recent years, individual specimens have been observed in Vienna and Lower Austria for the first time in more than a century.
report sightings
By the way, sightings can be reported on the citizen science platform naturobservation.at or the app of the same name. Specialists then help with the exact identification of the animal and in turn receive information about its distribution.
Source: Krone
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