This is not one of my super facts posts but I think it is interesting information about a quite frightening insect that I had never heard of before I encountered it- a tarantula hawk encounter.
When my daughter was 5-7 years old, she was part of what you can perhaps call a pre-girl-scout organization. It was called Indian Princesses. It later changed its name to Adventure Princesses. They had meetings where they learned things, and they went camping as a group with their dads or moms. There were bonfires, grilling, nature, fishing, adventures, jumping in mud, riding horses, and staying up late at night.
One time the Indian Princesses went camping in Camp Classen in Oklahoma. Since we live in North Texas it was not far away. One morning, as we were standing there talking and preparing breakfast, we saw a big black insect landing on the ground.
As we looked closer, we saw that it had landed on a Tarantula. It stung the tarantula, which stopped moving. Then it dragged the Tarantula through the grass about 100-150 feet and then under the girls’ bathroom. As we stood around the Tarantula and the big black insect, we saw that the insect had reddish wings and the body shape of a wasp or an ant. We did not know what it was. This was the year 2005 or possibly 2006 and cellphones with internet were not common.
My daughter ran to get her jewelry box from her cabin. When she came back, she handed it to me and said, “Dad put them in here”. Another dad standing nearby started laughing and said, “yes Thomas I want to see you put them in the box.” It was quite lucky that I didn’t because the big black insect with reddish wings was what is called a Tarantula Hawk, a type of wasp, which allegedly has the most painful sting of any insect in the northern hemisphere. There is an insect with a worse sting in South America.
The Tarantula Hawk is a wasp that feeds on nectar but the female Tarantula Hawk stings and kills Tarantulas to feed its larvae. It stings the Tarantula between the legs, paralyzing it, and then drags the prey to a specially prepared burrow, where a single egg is laid on the spider’s abdomen, and the burrow entrance is covered.
According to this article one researcher described the tarantula hawk’s sting this way: “To me, the pain is like an electric wand that hits you, inducing an immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one’s ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream.
Below is a youTube video about the Tarantula Hawk.
Have you ever encountered a Tarantula Hawk or another scary wasp or insect?
Newstrade