Black and yellow mud dauber is a common name

Common name

A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...

 for the sphecid wasp

Sphecidae

Sphecidae is a cosmopolitan family of wasps that include digger wasps, mud daubers and other familiar types that all fall under the category of thread-waisted wasps.The are predominently solitary wasp,distributed world wide.At present this family consist of eight subfamilies and three tribes...

 species Sceliphron caementarium. They are solitary insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s that build nests out of mud, in sheltered locations, frequently on man-made structure such as bridges, barns, open porches or under the eaves of houses. These nests are not aggressively defended, and stings are rare.

The black and yellow mud dauber's nest comprises a series of cylindrical cells that are plastered over to form a smooth nest that may attain nearly the size of a human fist. After building a cell, the female wasp captures several spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...

s. The captured prey are stung and paralyzed before being placed in the nest, and then a single egg is deposited on the prey within each cell. The wasp then seals the cell with mud. After finishing a series of cells, she leaves and does not return. Eventually, the hatching larva

Larva

A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

 will eat the prey and emerge from the nest. A common species of cuckoo wasp

Cuckoo wasp

Commonly known as cuckoo wasps, the Hymenopteran family Chrysididae is a very large cosmopolitan group of parasitoid or cleptoparasitic wasps, often highly sculptured, with brilliantly colored metallic-like bodies...

, Chrysis angolensis, is frequently a cleptoparasite in Sceliphron

Sceliphron

Sceliphron is a genus of Hymenoptera of the Sphecidae family of wasps, commonly referred to as mud daubers. They are solitary and build nests made of mud. Nests are frequently constructed in shaded niches, often just inside of windows or vent openings, and it may take a female only a day to...

nests, and is only one of many different insects that parasitize these mud dauber

Mud dauber

Mud dauber is a name commonly applied to a number of wasps from either the family Sphecidae or Crabronidae that build their nests from mud...

s.

There are some 30 other species of Sceliphron that occur throughout the world, though in appearance and habits they are quite similar to S. caementarium. S. caementarium is widespread in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

, South Africa and the West Indies, and has been introduced to many Pacific Islands

Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....

 (including Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

), Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, where it has become established in the western Mediterranean Basin

Mediterranean Basin

In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin refers to the lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have a Mediterranean climate, with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers, which supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation...

.