Wasp and Spider Story
So, there's these solitary predatory wasps that live in our neighbourhood, and in other places around Dunedin that I always noticed and wandered what they were because they're kind of large, and red-orange. Then this year, when it was summer, or whatever that non-freezing, not-constantly-raining season is, I saw lots of the wasps/the same wasp many times doing all sorts of stuff around the garden. Mostly that stuff was looking for and killing spiders, looking for a nest spot, and then dragging the spider to the nest. One time after it had found itself a spider and dragged it around a bit and then gone off to look for places to put it, I got the camera (which has since been taken by an evil university student) and took pictures of the rest of the dragging process.
I also sent two photos to the museum and Anthony Harris at the museum said it was "Sphictostethus nitidus (Fabricius, 1775) with prey, Miturga sp. The wasp is the red spider hunting wasp, in the family Pompilidae." So there we go. I got out the two books/journal things on NZ hunting wasps that he wrote but have not completely looked through them yet. However, I did see that how the wasp drags it's prey depends on the species - like some drag it upside down, some the right way up, some push it, etc - and most of the ones here generally find the spider then the nest rather than the other way around.
Here are the photos.
First, the spider, while the wasp is away investigating potential nest spots.
I turned it over so we could see what it looks like on the top, that being the way we normally see spiders.
The wasp comes back - Hey! What happened here?
- Who turned over my spider?
- Damn, heavy, massive, spiders (grumble grumble grumble)
- Finally! It's over! Ok, taking it across the path.
- Still going. This thing is heavy.
- I've got to pull it UP a whole 10cm here!
- Over the edge to my secret lair, bye!
Whereby it went into the silverbeet garden and presumably dragged it into a hole somewhere.
I saw it drag one another time into a little hole between the bricks. It went in first, and pulled the spider in afterwards, and it looked like the spider would just get stuck and plug the hole, but it managed to get it in.
I don't think I'm going to tell you what happens to the spider, etc, cos it ruins our nice happy wasp story by being realistic instead of cute.
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The weather here today is alternating between being briefly sunny and hailing whilst looking like it will snow, all the while being freezing. And it has been cold and raining for nearly two weeks now. It normally doesn't rain for this long!
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I'm putting insects, spiders, etc under the tag "bugs" because I don't want to have separate tags or use "arthropods" because that doesn't mean much to most people.
For those who actually want to see the pics bigger, click on them and you can. A couple are really good (the fourth and last ones), especially since they're taken on a normal "snapshot" kind of digital camera without any special close-up stuff. I was impressed at how well it took these close pictures, although it's always hard to get the camera the right distance away so it's as close as it can go and still focus, as there's not much indication that it is properly in focus - and there's not much margin for error at this distance.
I also sent two photos to the museum and Anthony Harris at the museum said it was "Sphictostethus nitidus (Fabricius, 1775) with prey, Miturga sp. The wasp is the red spider hunting wasp, in the family Pompilidae." So there we go. I got out the two books/journal things on NZ hunting wasps that he wrote but have not completely looked through them yet. However, I did see that how the wasp drags it's prey depends on the species - like some drag it upside down, some the right way up, some push it, etc - and most of the ones here generally find the spider then the nest rather than the other way around.
Here are the photos.
First, the spider, while the wasp is away investigating potential nest spots.
I turned it over so we could see what it looks like on the top, that being the way we normally see spiders.
The wasp comes back - Hey! What happened here?
- Who turned over my spider?
- Damn, heavy, massive, spiders (grumble grumble grumble)
- Finally! It's over! Ok, taking it across the path.
- Still going. This thing is heavy.
- I've got to pull it UP a whole 10cm here!
- Over the edge to my secret lair, bye!
Whereby it went into the silverbeet garden and presumably dragged it into a hole somewhere.
I saw it drag one another time into a little hole between the bricks. It went in first, and pulled the spider in afterwards, and it looked like the spider would just get stuck and plug the hole, but it managed to get it in.
I don't think I'm going to tell you what happens to the spider, etc, cos it ruins our nice happy wasp story by being realistic instead of cute.
-----
The weather here today is alternating between being briefly sunny and hailing whilst looking like it will snow, all the while being freezing. And it has been cold and raining for nearly two weeks now. It normally doesn't rain for this long!
-----
I'm putting insects, spiders, etc under the tag "bugs" because I don't want to have separate tags or use "arthropods" because that doesn't mean much to most people.
For those who actually want to see the pics bigger, click on them and you can. A couple are really good (the fourth and last ones), especially since they're taken on a normal "snapshot" kind of digital camera without any special close-up stuff. I was impressed at how well it took these close pictures, although it's always hard to get the camera the right distance away so it's as close as it can go and still focus, as there's not much indication that it is properly in focus - and there's not much margin for error at this distance.
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