Anybody an Insect Enthusiast?

Anybody here on PC that likes bugs and could identify a flying insect with a photo if I supply one?

I have tried searching on the Web for a picture of hornets, Yellow Jackets, etc.. and cannot find anything close to what I have captured in my backyard.

I don't know what the hell this thing is as I have NEVER seen anything like this before. It almost looks like a dragonfly because it has a super long body, but it also has a very long stinger on it, and kind of looks like a Yellow Jacket, but the pics I found on the web show the Yellow Jacket has a fatter body than what I have found.

I have seen them flying around in my backyard and we do have a problem with Wasps, so I thought it was just a long wasp of some sort, but one of them was sitting in grass, so I stunned it with my foot and picked it up by its wings and have captured it so to speak inside a plastic baggie.

It has a very interesting body shape, its body is very long I would say almost 2 inches in length and the body is striped with black and yellow stripes and that is why I thought it was a yellow jacket but it does not look like any of the yellow jacket photos I have seen on the web, this thing I caught is much longer.

The Stinger is super long, the biggest stinger I have ever seen on something and the stinger must be at least an 3/4 of an inch long.

I am at work now, so I can't take a pic of it, but when I get home today I could post a close up pic of it and could somebody figure out what this thing is.

 

:fear: LOL!!, It almost looks like something out of a movie, I have never seen anything like that before. It looks like a cross between a dragonfly and a wasp. It is tightly closed up in a ziplock baggie inside the garage. After 24 hours it was still not quite dead and still moving around a bit in the baggie.

 

Here is the bug,,
Sorry but the pics really are not good, our good digital camera is broke and I had to use an older camera that does not have a zoom lens.




Sorry, these are really blurry. But maybe somebody might have some idea what this thing is..

 

Yeah,, I'm sorry, I hate the old camera, It might be a locust??, I don't think I have seen one of those up close before, I'll have to google that and see what they look like, it is definately not a grasshopper as I have seen many of those and it does not have the grasshopper legs nor is it green at all. It is all brownish and yellow. It's head/face actually looks like a fly face.

I'm off to look at pics of locusts now, thanks for the suggestion!

 

No, not a locust, just looked at tons of pics, it does not have the A shaped legs nor does it have the head.

It has the body length though,

 

Thanks, those are both great ideas, I am dying to know what this thing is. I have seen lots of bugs in my 40 years of living and have never come across anything like this before. I should also check out one of the North American field guides to insects or something like that when I go to the Library this weekend.

 

The bug is 2 inches in length and I looked again at the stinger, it is actually about 1 inch in length and goes halfway up the bugs body with about 1/2 actually sticking out, but the more I look at the bug, this stinger thingy actually looks like it would be some kind of egg depositing thing like someone else mentioned yesterday an ovi something or other.

Upon closer inspection it does appear to have another stinger attached to its butt that looks more like a wasp, hornet, bee stinger that is much smaller. So maybe this long this is the egg depositor.

Oh, and I stunned it with my foot by gently stepping on it, without too much pressure, I saw it land in the grass and my dogs were going for it because they had just finished torturing a bumble bee and I was watching them play around, I had seen a few of these flying around the garage the other day and I thought it was a wasp on steroids because it was so long. So when the opportunity came for me to catch it I gently stepped on it with just enough pressure to render it imobile, then I picked it up by its wings.

I'm going to look at that other website that someone just posted a link to. The bug they linked in the post is not the same one, but very close in size. But the color is all wrong, but the stinger looking thing is exactly the same kind as my bug.