Habitat- Southern North America; Central America; South America
Size (Weight/Length)- 50 mm
Diet- Nectar; Fruit
Cool Facts- Tarantula wasps have the second most painful sting, just behind bullet ants. I guess we’re lucky they’re pretty shy by comparison. While both sexes have brilliant orange wings and metallic black bodies, females are significantly larger. Female tarantula hawks search for spiders, usually tarantulas, to be used as a living nursery. Encouraging the tarantula to rear onto its hind legs, the wasp will sting the spider on a nerve and cause paralysis. Dragging the spider into its burrow, the tarantula hawk lays a single egg, and covers the burrow entrance. The newly hatched larvae will then eat the spider, weave a cocoon, and emerge as a fully grown wasp.
Rating- 11/10 (Dangerous, brutal, easily defeated by roadrunners.)
Colorado Potato Beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) Parthenice Tiger Moth (Apantesis parthenice), and Spider Wasp (Priocnemis spp.)! My first wasp so far, I couldn't resist the blue. Slowly working myself up to spiders so I can draw them as they deserve! Bugs referenced from INaturalist with photos by brickman and ericgiles respectively, and the Spider Wasp from InsectIdentification.org.
A small collection of holding wasps on my hand. They’ll typically mind their own business as long as you mind yours, meaning you're still or slow around them, and they can also get accustomed to your presence near nests if you don’t harm them. When they’re landed, you can read their wariness by whether their wings and abdomens are relaxed. Mud daubers like in the first photo are the tamest to hold, all it should take is to gently put your hand like you’re gonna scoop them up head-first, only you let them walk on by themselves. Minding the stinger, you won’t be able to steer them on using your other hand like with moths or jumping spiders, so there’s no guarantee they’ll go where you want. But if they do, as long as you keep your hand still and the rest of your body unanimated, you should be able to watch a calm wasp groom itself from close-up before it flies off or before you set it down on another perch.
(Obviously, know your pain tolerance in case you fumble your first attempts at this. Don’t just try this with a tarantula hawk.)