English

Abstract

Abstract Burrowing crayfish are a polyphyletic group of crayfish adapted to life in habitats where surface water is only intermittently available. The burrowing activity of these crayfish creates refugia for numerous other species, making them allogenic ecosystem engineers. While excavating devil crayfish burrows in a roadside ditch in Southern Indiana, USA, a large cicada killer wasp carrying an even larger cicada landed near the authors. The wasp spent a few minutes manipulating its prey, then took flight and flew directly into an unoccupied crayfish burrow in the roadside ditch. The wasp emerged approximately ten minutes later without the cicada and flew away. Female cicada killer wasps typically excavate brooding burrows consisting of numerous cells in which they deposit cicadas for their young to feed on upon hatching. We believe that this particular cicada killer wasp was in the process of provisioning a brooding cell, but used a crayfish burrow instead of digging its own burrow, possibly to save energy. To our knowledge, use of a crayfish burrow by a cicada killer wasp has not been documented before and adds to the list of organisms that benefit from the ecosystem engineering of burrowing crayfish, highlighting the importance of giving these crayfish appropriate conservation attention.