FAYETTEVILLE. — It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a tarantula hawk wasp!
Tarantula hawk wasps are the largest stinging insects in Arkansas. Luckily, they are also among the least interested in humans and would much rather be dragging paralyzed tarantulas into a burrow than scaring outdoor enthusiasts.
Tarantula hawk drags prey up the side of the house. Taken Oct. 6, 2017. (Image courtesy Mary Hightower)
Tarantula hawks are the largest wasps of the family Pompilidae, known commonly as spider wasps. If you don’t like spiders, these wasps are your best friends. They are parasitoids of spiders, meaning that they use live spiders as food for their larvae. Venoms produced by the roughly 5,000 species of spider wasps worldwide aim to immobilize, but not dispatch, their victims. Why? Simple! Because wasps don’t have refrigerators, and dead spiders spoil. By keeping the spiders alive it allows time for their larvae to hatch from eggs and have fresh provisions for their journey to becoming the next generation of flying spider nightmare.
There are a few species of tarantula hawk wasps in Arkansas, all being large black, or dark iridescent blue-bodied with orange or black wings. Some are larger than others, reaching sizes of up to two full inches in body length, and they need that size for dragging their quarry from the sting site to the wasp’s burrow.
A single female tarantula hawk can bury several tarantulas, each accompanied by a single egg, but not every encounter is won by the tarantula hawk. Tarantulas have venom of their own, and while mostly blind, perhaps have the upper hand when encountered within their own burrow.
One species, the elegant tarantula hawk wasp (Pepsis menechma), is found east of the Mississippi River where tarantulas do not exist. In this part of its range, it has been reported to feed on trapdoor spiders, another group of burrowing spiders closely related to tarantulas.
Unlike paper wasps and yellow jackets, these wasps live solitary lives, and it is also worthy of note that as with all stinging wasps, only the females can sting. But if you find one of these searching along the ground you can bet it is a female. Only they seek their formidable foe.
Males and females feed on the nectar of flowers with a reported affinity for milkweed nectar. They are considered quite docile, and always seemingly preoccupied with the hunt when not refueling at a nectar source, but their sting is considered the most painful in North America by the late Justin Schmidt, creator of the Schmidt sting pain index.
Should you be lucky enough to see one of these denizens prowling the earth or feeding at your local milkweed patch, perhaps think about the incredible chain of events that unfolded to bring it there, and how many generations of tarantulas and wasps have been involved in this age-old drama that hopefully will continue to unfold in the Natural State for generations to come.
