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Video: man allows himself to be stung by a tarantula hawk wasp (skip to the 10-minute mark)
Addendum: A tip of the blogging hat to Australian reader Jim, who attests from personal experience that this is not a tarantula hawk wasp, but rather Cryptocheilus bicolor (the orange spider wasp) -
This wasp is a predator of the huntsman spiders (family Sparassidae) and wolf spiders (Lycosidae). It paralyses the spider by stinging it in its underside. The prey is then dragged to a burrow, dug by the female using shovel-like hairs on its front legs.
This is not a Tarantula Hawk, which are confined to the Pepsis and Hemipepsis genera. While we do have wasps of those genera in Australia, this is not one of them. This is a Cryptocheilus bicolor, a species I'm far more familiar with than I would like to be.
ReplyDeleteI used to live in a large house in southern Sydney which seemed to attract these wasps, particularly in the kitchen and living rooms. They are huge, and also LOUD flyers, but often just sit still doing nothing for long periods of time - or at least, that describes their behaviour in my kitchen. What this meant was that I would occasionally hear that distinctive, dreaded bass-heavy wing-beating sound for a second or two, and then ominous silence, consigning me to a terrified, tiptoed wasp-hunting session.
Normally I leave the wildlife to itself, even indoors, but I do NOT fancy a sting from one of these beasties, and I'm particularly fond of huntsman spiders. This had a lot to do with my conversion to (and subsequent fandom of) the Dyson vacuum company. I bought one of their more powerful models and it came to be known in that house as WaspBane. Happily, the vacuum didn't seem to injure the wasps, so I could safely release my captives outside, in the (probably vain) hope that they had learned a lesson and mightn't come inside again.
Nope, nope, nope. And this is why, however much I adore my grandsons, if my son and his wife (who is from the Sydney area) decide to move there (as it's always possible they might) I will be content to be a long-distance-Skype-grandma. I can't even look at the photo (I have to scroll past quickly, eyes closed) I can't imagine the screaming meemies I would dissolve into should I see such things in real life.
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