It is Spring in Australia and lots of creepy crawlies are coming out of hibernation. But many Facebook users were baffled when they saw strange, mystery blobs in one photo. One mother uploaded a photo to Facebook group, ‘Mums Who Clean’, to identify the mystery blobs on her wall.
The worried mother found brown blobs on her bathroom wall and asked group members to help her identify them.
“What should I do? These are on the bathroom wall,” she asked, attaching a photo of seven mysterious brown blobs.
Her post sent other worried mothers into overdrive, with some even suggesting she should just give up and move house!
Luckily for the worried mother, who lives in Australia, one woman identified the mysterious blobs as mud wasp nests. “Hate these bloody things! Although never had them inside,” the lady said.
Another member of the Facebook group, who is also a pest controller, suggested to scrape them off and bin them. “No pest control services required,” she said.
“Whenever dealing with wasps always do it at night when they are more dormant,” another person added.
Mud-dauber wasps live all over Australia, from Victoria to Darwin and from urban areas to woodland. Ecologist and University of Sydney professor Dieter Hochuli shed light on the matter with news.com.au.
He said the female mud wasps are a common sight this time of year as they come out of their winter hibernation.
Mud daubers belong to different families and are variable in appearance. These might look scary - black and yellow colours - but Prof Hochuli said they are quite harmless and live largely solitary lives.
“They make a living by catching spiders where they paralyse and seal them in their muddy, clay nests,” he said. “They then lay eggs inside the nests and once born; their wasp babies will eat the dead spiders until they can chew their way out of the muddy nest as adults.”
Although the wasps are not aggressive, they will attack if they feel threatened and give a painful sting. Prof Hochuli suggests only removing nests when the wasps are not active.
“You probably want to avoid spraying them,” he said. “They are not particularly dangerous to humans – spiders yes – but they do give a nasty sting and while they’re active, they can be reasonably defensive. When wasps are not in or around their nests, you can physically remove them.”
Hochuli explains people will start to see bugs entering the house at this time of year, as nature gets going. They are very opportunistic and will try to live anywhere they can attach their mud nests and get spiders.
“You can find them all over Australia, from Victoria to Darwin and urban areas to woodland,” he said.
