[3] Adults are typically black, with light or clear wings, and sometimes a red or brown gaster or legs.

The sting often paralyzes the prey completely, though in a few species, it only appears to prevent them from attempting to escape.

[3] Jean-Henri Fabre devotes a chapter to their predacious behavior in his More Hunting Wasps, comparing it with the genus Sphex.

[5] Some Tachytes species exhibit hilltopping behavior, in which males will perch near and territorially defend points of high elevation, such as the tops of hills and mountains.

In other cases, males apparently guard burrows with developing females, waiting for them to emerge.