Tarantula Hawk

“Not a bird, but a wasp with a powerful sting.”

The tarantula hawk wasp gets its name because it hunts, rather like a bird of prey. In this case, the prey is a tarantula or a large and well-fed spider. The wasp doesn’t eat the tarantula but paralyzes it, drags it to its burrow, and lays an egg on it. When the egg hatches, the larva burrows into the spider’s body but is careful not to eat any vital organs until just before it pupates. Then, it emerges like the chest burster in Alien and continues the tarantula hawk’s lifecycle.

But that’s not the only gruesome thing about this otherwise peaceable insect with its diet of pollen and nectar. The female tarantula hawk has one of the most painful stings known to humanity. Fortunately, all it does is cause several minutes of agony with no after-effects save the person or animal knowing not to mess with the wasp ever again.

Five Incredible Tarantula Hawk Facts!

Here are some things to know about the fascinating tarantula hawk wasp:

• One species, Pepsis grossa, is the state insect of New Mexico.
• The stinger of P. grossa can be as long as 9/32 inches.
• Because the sting of this wasp is so excruciating, most wasp-eating animals leave it alone. The only animals that seem to be able to tackle it are the roadrunner, the kingbird, and the bullfrog. The roadrunner appears to bash the insect senseless before it swallows it and will even steal its paralyzed tarantula while ignoring the wasp. However, tarantula hawks are but a small portion of the roadrunner’s diet.
• As with other Hymenopterans, only females sting. They can be told from males because they have curly antennae. The antennae of males are usually straight.
• The lifespan of a tarantula hawk is not long. The males only live a few weeks, while the lifespan of a female is only about four or five months.

Evolution And History

Belonging to the larger, incredibly diverse Hymenoptera genus, the tarantula spider, is actually a type of spider wasp belonging to the family Pompilidae. The oldest known fossil on record is currently one from the early Eocene era, 55.8 million to 33.9 million years ago.

Types Of Species, And Scientific Names

Tarantula hawks belong to two genera, Pepsis and Hemipepsis and is actually a type of spider wasp in the family Pompilidae. Pepsis is the Greek word for “digestion,” and is also the root word for Pepsi Cola. Hemipepsis would mean “half-digestion.” Maybe this refers to the gruesome way the larva digests the provisioned tarantula over time. There are possibly 175 species of Hemipepsis and 312 species of Pepsis. Besides the ones mentioned above, they include:

• Pepsis nitida
• Pepsis nana
• Pepsis limbata
• Pepsis cybele
• Pepsis decorata
• Hemipepsis braunsi
• Hemipepsis lacustris
• Hemipepsis mysorae
• Hemipepsis severa
• Hemipepsis thione

Appearance

The tarantula hawk wasp is easy to identify. They are quite large wasps and can grow up to two inches long. They have black bodies and orange wings, sometimes lined in black. Pepsis wasps can sometimes be told from Hemipepsis wasps because their bodies are iridescent, and iridescence is not as common in Hemipepsis wasps. They can be found on flowers eating nectar and pollen or walking on the ground in search of tarantulas. Males fly to the highest location on a plant and wait for receptive females to come by.

Habitat

These wasps can be found in arid and semi-arid open areas and rainforests. They’re found wherever tarantulas are found. They are solitary animals and dig burrows for themselves and eventually their larvae. They can also be found during the day sipping nectar from flowers.

Diet

Tarantula hawks are nectarivores, and they drink nectar and eat pollen from flowers, especially the flowers of milkweed, mesquite, and western soapweed. As they visit these plants, tarantula hawks pollinate them. Their pollination of milkweed is especially important to the survival of monarch butterflies, which also pollinate the plant and use it as a host plant for their caterpillars as well.

Tarantula hawk wasps also eat fermented fruit, sometimes to the point where they become intoxicated. Grown wasps do not eat tarantulas but set them aside for their young.