When the new generation of adults emerge, they contain the genetically programmed behaviors required to carry out another season of nest building.

[3] Richard Dawkins and Jane Brockmann later studied female rivalry over nesting holes in Sphex ichneumoneus.

[4] Some writers in the philosophy of mind, most notably Daniel Dennett, have cited Sphex's behavior for their arguments about human and animal free will.

Philosopher Fred Keijzer challenges this use of Sphex, citing experiments in which behavioral adaptations are observed after many iterations.

Keijzer sees the persistence of the Sphex example in cognitive theory as an indication of its rhetorical usefulness, not its factual accuracy.

[9] Keijzer also noted that repeated inspection of a disturbed nest may very well be an adaptive behavior, thus diminishing the aptness of Hofstadter's metaphor.