Ecology of Center City, Philadelphia

John Bartram's house, a historic landmark in Philadelphia.

Cities typically are in a constant state of flux, transforming natural habitat into roads, buildings, and public spaces, which themselves change over time. This book explores how selected species of plants and animals in my hometown of Philadelphia have tolerated urban change. Some have flourished. Some have vanished. Some of the most successful have developed strategies for sharing the urban landscape with people. Some have simply made themselves at home in our homes.

In 1745 John Bartram, a nurseryman and naturalist in Philadelphia, described the black and yellow mud dauber (Sceliphron caementarium), which is native to North America. He detailed how the wasp makes a mud nest consisting of cells provisioned with spiders that it had paralyzed. He marveled how in each cell the spider deposits an egg that hatches into a larva that feeds on the spiders. He observed that the larva transforms into a pupa that overwinters and hatches in the spring into an adult that chews its way out of the mud nest. 

Today this wasp continues to nest on John Bartram’s house, which has been preserved as a historic landmark surrounded by a public garden and park commemorating him. I suspect that the wasp nests in the same nooks that John Bartram observed almost three centuries ago.

__________

Ecology of Center City, Philadelphia is freely available in digital format.

Mud dauber's nest on John Bartram's house.

Black and yellow mud dauber harvesting mud for her nest.