Tarantula Hawk Wasp
Pepsis sp.
16.7354, -92.6387
Field Notes
Description:
This was about the biggest scariest wasp I ever saw. It landed on the picnic table in the garden. Family Pompilidae. These wasps are famous for both hunting and battling with a tarantula and for their terrible stings, considered among the most painful of all wasps. This one does not have orange antennae. See this different species of Pepsis (all black body and antennae that are orange-yellow in color) from the southern coffee region of the State of Chiapas:
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/2059706002/fullscreen.
Habitat:
Semi-urban garden, San Cristobal de Las Casas, 2,200 meters.
Notes:
The female wasp hunts down a wandering male tarantula, out looking for a mate, battles with it until she succeeds in stinging and paralyzing the spider. She then drags it to a pre-dug burrow, stuffs it in the hole and then lays her egg on the spider and closes the burrow. The larva of the wasp has a living host for it's development underground.
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