Photo by Psionicman
Mud Dauber
Mud dauber wasps are a set of wasp species from several families that share similar body shape, nest shape, and behavior. Mud dauber wasps are easily identified because of their body shape - an extremely narrow waist connects the abdomen and thorax of the wasp. Mud daubers are solitary, and a female mud dauber will build long, skinny chambers out of mud in the shape of a tube, and will build rows of these chambers in a sheltered location, looking like a rank of organ pipes. Each chamber in the nest is usually home to an egg and a collection of paralyzed spiders that the wasp has hunted and provided for the juvenile wasps to feed on.
Some species of mud daubers remove the eggs from other wasps’ nests and replace them with their own; others find abandoned nests and reuse them. A collection of different species occupying the same niche and then also preying on that niche is a common wasp ecological pattern.
Mud daubers are generally docile wasps towards humans, unless their nest is threatened.
What do you love about this particular creature?
What do they reveal to you about God and our faith?
I love animals that build things. Reflecting on them helps me to stay rooted in creation as part of creation. Rather than seeing my humanity as something set apart from the rest of creation, building something is something that connects me to so many other exciting creatures - from beavers to birds to bugs!
Mud daubers, about as different from me as I can imagine a creature being, take the material around them and make something new. What they create is small and seemingly insignificant - only a few inches in size - but an entire universe of life and death happens within this little environment. The wasp taking mud and constructing a row of identical chambers is engaged in a creative act, a gift that God has shared with humanity just as much as with our kin from across the realm of living creatures.
Remembering this helps me to honor the fellow creativity and createdness of all the beings I share this world with. It also helps me to take greater joy in my own creativity - I, like the Mud Dauber, and like God, get to play in the mud and call it good!
Author - Will Harron
Will Harron lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where the Green River meets the Deerfield River, and the Deerfield River meets the Connecticut in a great river valley, but loves to follow the tributary streams up to higher regions whenever possible.
Dear God, you have created us in your image and set us in creation that bears your same imprint. Help us to recognize our mutuality in creativity, to take joy and wonder in your world, and to honor your creation with our living. May our creativity help us to better care for your whole creation, through your son Jesus Christ, Amen.