[2][3] Found across Eurasia, the parasitoid wasp is notable for the mass provisioning behaviour of the females, hunting caterpillars mainly on sunny days, paralysing them with a sting, and burying them in a burrow with a single egg.

[6] It was formerly thought that the following were subspecies: Ammophila sabulosa is widely distributed across Eurasia with records from the southern half of Britain,[7] France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy.

Hungary, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, further south in Turkey and Iran, [8][1][9] then ranging eastwards as far as the Russian Far East, with a very few records in India and Japan.

[11][3] The prey is stung several times, mainly on the 2nd and 3rd abdominal segments: this distribution may relate to the positions of nerve ganglia that co-ordinate locomotion in the caterpillar.

Nests are nearly always mass provisioned, which means fully stocked with enough food to take the wasp larva through to pupation, and then permanently closed.

[14] Ammophila sabulosa is parasitised by some other wasps including the Ichneumonid Buathra tarsoleuca and the Sphecid Podalonia affinis.