Guess what we found in our yard today? Warning, the answer may disturb you. In fact, if you don’t like insects, you might want to scroll back down to the jacaranda post. Yeah, another bug. We’ve decided maybe our yard is some kind of strange crossroads for wildlife, because all these critters keep showing up that we’ve never seen before, many of them bugs.
Yesterday afternoon, while we sat on the front porch admiring our newest young trees and basking in the flush of their recent growth, we saw a curious flutter of orange wings lit by the glow of the sinking sun. We didn’t recognize the creature, but it looked too small for a hummingbird and too big for an insect. A dragonfly perhaps? But we’d never seen an orange one. Before we could get a closer look, it was gone, so ephemeral it could’ve been a little orange fairy come to celebrate our new mini-grove of trees with us.
Ahem. Today it came back. In the clear light of midday, it was obviously not a fairy but a very large wasp, striking all the same with its two-inch black body and orange wings, but definitely not a fairy. My husband caught it in a jar for a closer look, and he asked some of the neighbors if they’d ever seen such a thing. One man thought it was a tarantula hawk (Desert USA) . I took some pictures, and my husband let it go. Later I looked it up on the Internet, and confirmed it was a tarantula hawk (BugGuide). By the way, all of the pictures I found online are better than mine, so they’re worth a look.
There are apparently three different species known as tarantula hawks, but they all look pretty much the same, although I came across one link with a photo of orange spirals on the female’s antennae (What’s That Bug? — scroll down to tarantula hawk).
According to one source at Wikipedia, this wasp has the most painful sting of any insect in North America—so I’m glad we survived its flights through our yard without mishap, but it didn’t seem very aggressive and I suspect it was simply minding its own business searching out a tarantula. It’s the adult female tarantula hawk that has the sting, and she’s distinguishable by her antennae wound in spirals (like the one we found). She uses her stinger to paralyze a tarantula so she can lay an egg (Desert Wildlife) inside its body. The tarantula survives the sting in a paralyzed state, but later on it doesn’t survive the young wasp hatching inside it and enjoying it as its first meal. Its only predator is the roadrunner. Surely this bug is a source of some of the more horrific science fiction stories. Except if you’re a tarantula it’s not fiction but real-life horror, and even for a human the sting is reportedly worth at least one real scream.
A blurry glimpse of its silhouette in flight (safely inside the plastic jar):
1.
Wow, and you caught it in a jar! I’d be skeered to do that. I never heard
of that bug either.
I have a plain ol’, regular wasp crawling into a hole on my front porch roof. I am HOPING he/she doesn’t build a nest or raise a family in there. It’s a tiny little slot where two metal poles don’t quite meet….arghhh. I have no idea how to chase them away…so I just watch. And on my (dying) butterfly bushes (we’re in a semi-drought here) I see little mud houses clinging to the branches…must be some kind of little wasp? I dunno. But these nests are only about the size of a Swedish meatball. heh!
Comment by Beverly Jackson — June 24, 2007 @ 4:33 am
2.
I was going to take in a matinée DVD this afternoon, “Alien.” But I just changed my mind.
Comment by Creechman — June 24, 2007 @ 5:07 am
3.
Thanks - that’s one ugly acting creature. I’ll be on the lookout, but I haven’t heard anything here in SE Pennsylvania.
Cas
Comment by cassie-b — June 24, 2007 @ 5:46 am
4.
Oh No! What a monstrosity. The most painful sting? I just bought a new can of wasp poison, of the sort that shoots a stream 25 feet, which is what we use when the nasties start building nests around the porch or shed.
I don’t recall the name or the author but long ago I read an sf story in which the poor protagonist entices a strange woman back to his room, only to discover that “she” is a disguised alien insect, part of an invasion. They have all arrived to lay eggs in their human hosts.
Comment by Eric Mayer — June 24, 2007 @ 8:49 am
5.
I am SO not a fan of bugs…I would rather have snakes in my garden (non-poisonous ones, that is).
Comment by violetismycolor — June 24, 2007 @ 8:05 pm
6.
Interesting critter. The article in DesertUSA was full of stuff, more than I ever really wanted to know about Tarantula Hawks, but at the end I had my question answered, which was wondering where they got their name. I always think of Hawk as a bird, a bird of prey. Well those wasps are predators, all right. One of the creatures of the universe I suppose and part of the great web of life–but I won’t mind if they occupy a different part of the web from me.
Snakes, insects, reptiles–they’re all just fine with me. Except scorpions. I draw the line at scorpions. Ugh!
Comment by Sarah — June 25, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
7.
Holy Canoli!
Comment by Reenie — June 26, 2007 @ 2:16 am
8.
Ugh! I can’t even look at the pictures on the blog without a can of Raid in one hand.
Comment by blogdog — July 2, 2007 @ 8:23 am