Along Came A Spider Killer

It was Wednesday, My mum spotted a funnel cocoon made of mud on my shoe cabinet... She suspected it as a wasp nest and sprayed ridsect on the nest. I hacked the nest off and to my amazement, almost a dozen dead and dying spiders came out... I told her it was a spider's nest but later I concluded several facts...

-Spiders are not social animals, they're likely to bite each other than share a home with a dozen other neighbours.

-No spiders are known to build funnel homes with mud.

So I concluded the bug who build the nest as a Pompillidae Spider Wasp... But this one is a much slimmer and smaller specimen than European species... The European species will snag a spider, paralyze it without killing it and drag it into it's nest where it lays its eggs. The wasp larvae will feed on the spider till it pupates. But this one had snaggged at least 12 spiders, probably orb-weavers judging by their shape... Due to the fact that I love to catch grasshoppers and spiders and put them inside a tupperware quite often, it is surprising because this is the first time I saw such spiders...

Today(Friday), I spotted the mud funnel again... I destroyed the nest and now approximately 20 spiders of the same species as the ones I found on Wednesday fell out... This time, I sprayed ridsect on the wasp who came to see her state-of-the-art restaurant for her babies destroyed... LOL... I took some pictures...

The dying wasp mother and her kill... With spiders of big and average sizes everywhere...


Suspect is found guilty of first grade murder of 30 spiders for the purpose of feeding her young and is sentenced to death via ridsect...LOL


The dead spiders...

I concluded this wasp is a very good hunter because it could kill more than 30 spiders hich are already efficient hunters in a few days... And the spiders caught are ones I never seen before... The wasp must also be very picky, all the dead prey were spiders, not a grasshopper or ant to be found...

A larger species of spider wasp is found in the Southwestern USA, Mexico and Amazon... Guess what this bird-sized wasp kills big tarantulas for the smae purpose!!!