Saturday, September 21, 2013

What is Scarier than Spiders?

Spiders vs Wasps

    Some things are simply scarier than simple spiders.  Imagine being paralyzed and having an egg placed in your stomach.  Then that hatched egg larva feeds on you from the inside until you eventually slowly die and allow it to emerge as an adult.  That's the fate of some spiders.

    The wasps in the family "pompilidae" which are commonly called "spider wasps" or "pompilid wasps"with some 5,000 species in six subfamilies.  All species of this wasp are solitary and will capture and paralyze their prey of living spiders.

    They paralyze the spider with a venomous stinger and a single egg is laid on the abdomen of the spider.  When the wasp larva hatches, it begins to feed on the still-living spider. After consuming the edible parts of the spider, the larva spins a silk cocoon and pupates, usually emerging as an adult the next summer. Some wasps lay the egg on a still-active spider, where it feeds externally on it.  In time, that spider will die, and the mature wasp larva will then pupate.

Some things of nature are simply scarier than spiders - even scary for the spiders.

Sleep well
♥ J.K. James

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