Nature at Work: How Paper Wasps Are Saving Our Swamp Lilies

If you’ve walked past the front fence line at the Wild Koala Breeding Centre at Guulabaa - Place of Koala lately, you may have noticed that some of our swamp lilies aren’t looking their best. The normally vibrant leaves appear to be collapsing or “melting” from the inside out — and it’s not just your imagination. These lilies are under attack!

The culprit? The lily moth larvae — hungry little caterpillars with a taste for the juicy green leaves of the swamp lily. It’s a disheartening sight, but one that’s all too common during certain times of the year. Thankfully, our observant gardening volunteer, Kay, has been documenting the damage and capturing photo evidence to help us monitor the spread.
But here’s the good news: nature often provides its own pest control system — and in our case, that comes in the form of the common paper wasp (Polistes humilis).

While the adult paper wasps spend their time sipping nectar and pollinating flowers, their young require a high-protein diet. That’s where the lily moth caterpillars come in. These wasps are expert hunters, collecting caterpillars and other soft-bodied insects to feed to their larvae back at the nest. At Guulabaa - Place of Koala, we’ve noticed the paper wasps patrolling our gardens, doing their part to keep the caterpillar population in check.

So the next time you feel tempted to swat away a paper wasp near the clothesline, take a moment to appreciate their role in our ecosystem. Yes, they can be a little too enthusiastic sometimes, but these tiny garden warriors are actually helping to restore balance by targeting pest species like the lily moth larvae.

In short — thanks, nature. You’re the cause of, and solution to, so many of our garden woes.