Rhynchium brunneum (Fabricius)

Swezey, O. H., 1942, Wasps of Guam, Insects of Guam I, Honolulu, Hawaii: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, pp. 184-187 : 187

9. Rhynchium brunneum (Fabricius) .

Vespa brunnea Fabricius , Ent. Syst. 2: 264, 1793.

Rhynchium brnnneum (Fabricius) Bingham, Fauna Brit. India, Hymenopt. 1: 355, 1897. Fullaway, Haw. Ent. Soc., Proc. 2: 283, 1913.

Agana, at Officers' Club, March 28, Bryan, May 4, 15, Swezey; Orote Peninsula, April 7, on coconut blossoms, Bryan; Ritidian Pt., April 15, on Hernandia blossoms, Bryan; Dededo, May 11, Swezey; Tarague, May 17, Swezey; Fadian, Sept. 18, Swezey.

This large brown wasp is very abundant and widely distributed. It is usuafly to be found in gardens, and is often seen abundantly on country roadsides and trails. It is a caterpillar hunter, storing the caterpillars in empty burrows of tree-boring beetles in stumps, trunks, or dead branches. Enough caterpillars are placed in a burrow to supply food for one larva, then plugged with mud. Their presence on or along roadsides is for the purpose of gathering mud for plugging the nests. Fullaway collected this wasp in 1911 . It occurs in Borneo , Sumatra and all through southern Asia.