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[Vol. 87 
probably three-to-four) days to provision one nest; Powell’s (1964) 
excavations of five nests. 
Two lines of evidence suggest that A. aberti does not practice 
delayed or progressive provisioning in northern Utah. First, prey¬ 
collecting trips at GF were generally rapid (x= 45.8 min, ±35.0, range 
10-168 min) and at least two prey (and usually more) were collected 
in succession. We have data for five nests from the initiation of 
digging through provisioning and final nest closure: two nests took 
more than one day from initiation to completion (40, 48 hrs), but 
both were constructed and provisioned during a period that included 
a day of rain when neither female was active; the other three nests 
required an average of 24 hrs (21, 24, 27 hrs) for completion. Thus, 
nests typically were not provisioned over an extended period of time 
as would be the case if progressive provisioning were practiced. 
The second line of evidence against progressive provisioning comes 
from the nest excavations at the Cornish site. Nests were excavated 
immediately after final closure: if progressive provisioning was 
practiced, most nests should have contained either third or fourth 
instar wasp larvae or an unhatched egg with one or two prey. This was 
not the case. Of 50 nests excavated, 30 contained unhatched eggs 
attached to larval prey, two contained eggs that had just hatched that 
day, 12 had young (first or second instar) larvae, and only one each 
had medium (third instar) or large (fourth instar) larvae. Four nests 
had prey but no egg. Cells averaged about six prey per cell (Table 1). 
Prey records —Fourteen genera of prey in five families of Lepi- 
doptera were recorded from the 50 nests excavated at Cornish (Table 
1). This contrasts with previous reports that A. aberti provisions its 
nests exclusively with geometrids (Hicks 1932, Evans 1959, Powell 
1964; Evans reported finding a few hesperiids also). Members of the 
family Pieridae were the most abundant prey items; 52.5% of all prey 
were pierids and at least one pierid larva occurred in 74.0% of the 
nests. Noctuids were also well represented and accounted for 32.4% 
of all prey individuals and were found in 38.0% of all nests. The most 
abundant genera of prey were Colias eury theme (Pieridae), a species 
near Drasteria sp. (Noctuidae), and Pier is (both rapae (L.) and 
protodice Boisduval & LeConte). Most nests contained a single 
species of prey (68.0%); 20% of all nests contained two species and 
12% contained three species of prey. Thus, A. aberti, is not restricted 
to geometrids as prey items and a substantial number of nests (32.0%) 
are provisioned with two or more prey species. 
