Duane Bajema wrote (and quoted someone who said):

> "I lived on a farm in central Iowa and there were these HUGE wasps or hornets (not sure) that had ENORMOUS "stingers" or maybe they were just tails - about 3 - 5 inches long.  I think they used them to drill into tree trunks and the like.  Any idea what these were or why they did that?  Someone said that they might be Cecada killers but I somewhat doubt that because they were never around cecadas."

          Ichneumon "flies" are slender wasps with long ovipositors. The ones with the really long ovipositors "drill" into wood (often where dead wood is already damaged by breaking or by woodpecker work) and deposit an egg in the tunnel made by a grub. The ichneumon's larva is a parasite on the grub.
        The "drilling" process makes a fascinating show.
         Cicada killers look (to me) like European hornets (like huge yellowjackets) and are solitary, ground-nesting wasps, digging a tunnel in hard soil. I look for the tunnels on the packed dirt of  baseball infields and on clay tennis courts.
Tim
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Tim Sterrett
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(southeastern) Pennsylvania, USA
40.0 N 75.5 W