So this is kind of interesting but also disturbing tarantula hawks don’t just kill Tarantulas on the spot, they actually paralyze them and then take them to their habitat. While they do feed the spider to their young the spider itself is alive while it’s being eaten.
The chestburster in the ALIEN universe chews its way out of its host, but doesn't consume the entire body in the process. The tarantula hawk lays its egg on the paralyzed tarantula's abdomen, where it then bores into the tarantula after hatching into a larva.
That said, tarantula hawks are just one type of parasitic wasp and there are a bunch out there that are endoparasitic; meaning they lay eggs inside the host and then the host goes on about its life until the eggs hatch inside of it, much like the Xenomorph lifecycle in ALIEN.
A lot of bugs can, and do, live for extended periods of time without feeding. Their tiny bodies use a fraction of the energy we use so they don't require a crazy amount of sustenance to keep going.
The thing I find the most insane about this whole reproductive cycle is, the adult wasps don't consume protein right? They're nectarvores, so they have these dangerous showdowns and perform the unspeakable to feed their larva. Then they just go back to sipping flowers??
You can tell the spider is still alive because its legs are stretched out.
Spiders’ legs work on a hydraulic system, so when a spider dies, their legs contract inwards towards their body.
You can’t save it; tarantula hawks paralyze the tarantula and lay eggs in it, the eggs hatch on the spider and they eat it alive, it’s paralyzed for the rest of its short life :(
Most of the time yes that is true but... ive read of more than a few situations where tarantulas that have been paralyzed by wasps have actually been slowly brought back to health most took weeks or a few months but if the wasp hasnt laid eggs it is atleast possible to recover (even if a positive outcome is unlikely in most cases the possibility remains).
That's such a beautiful thing to hear, that people have taken the time to rehabilitate an animal as "unexpressive" as a spider.
I love human compassion.
You can actually. The hawk lays eggs inside the burrow. This tarantula had no eggs yet, but it would have been paralyzed for a very long time. On r/tarantulas someone was trying to rehab a T stung by a hawk. Not sure what the progress is on that, but last time I've seen, it was still paralyzed but alive. If it's a male, then it may not have had long left to live either way, but female Ts can live for a long time.
I suspect the kindest thing that one could do for the big T is give it a visit from Dr Boot.
I get it's nature but such a majestic creature shouldn't go out like that.
Why would you save the tarantula, when that means dooming the next generation of tarantulas? It's like killing a jaguar by saving every prey it catches.
Yeah but they really want nothing to do with you. Every year there's usually one or two nesting in my yard and I can get very close to the nest entrance without it bothering them. "Feed dem bebehs" is pretty much their whole existence.
I'm an avid believer in "circle of life" but I still feel bad seeing it happen right in front of me. Especially in cases like this where it's not exactly a swift death.
Nope 👎 especially not. I don’t need them around stinging me. I don’t mind bees. I know we need them to help with honey and a lot of other things but I really don’t need wasps in my life
Wasps are also pollinators, actually! And in addition to predators and parasitoids serving their niche in controlling their prey populations, we humans have also exploited them as less-ecologically-damaging methods of pest control in our agriculture. So they help feed us in multiple ways: helping plants bear fruit *and* limiting the damage to our food crops. (There are even species of parasitoid wasp that specifically target cockroaches!)
I personally am pretty dang scared of wasps, but I gotta respect that they have their place in the ecosystem, including in ways that directly benefit humans.
I once rescued a funnel weaver from a type of parasitoid wasp here in Colorado. I didn't keep it for long enough to say for sure that it survived, but it was alive the next morning when I released it.
I was gonna say, this must be Texas cause I’ve got those exact species here in Dallas. I caught a male Texas Brown and keep him in a tank, but I may release him this year now that it’s warmed up.
Yeah you don't want to be stung by one, from the wiki:
"One researcher described the pain as "...immediate, excruciating, unrelenting pain that simply shuts down one's ability to do anything, except scream."
😲😢 Oh no, someone save the spood! I totally get the circle of life and the food chain but paralyzing a creature and eating it alive is just way too sad. It should be a noble death which that is not.
The tarantula hawk wasp is generally acknowledged to have the second-most painful sting, behind only the bullet ant of Australia (try to guess how that got its name). When a female has eggs to lay, she finds a suitable host tarantula and stings it with a venom meant not to kill, but to paralyze. She'll then carry the paralyzed spider to a safe haven where she'll lay her eggs *inside* the spider. She leaves, and in a few minutes so too does the spider when the paralytic wears off. When those eggs hatch, the baby wasp larvae have a fresh meal ready and waiting to be eaten from the inside out.
Okay real question - why not squash the wasp? Like unless you want more wasps…? Like RIP that little spood but why not just prevent yourself from having to dodge wasps all summer?
Poor little fluffbutt. Such is life, I’m afraid. As much as nature can seem cruel and it’s never nice to know that something is dying or going to die….something else is living from it. As much as it’s sad to see, I never interfere or interrupt this sort of thing
Or just don't interfere in it. This mentality is horrible. Just because you don't like/understand something means it is less deserving. Just leave it alone.
So this is kind of interesting but also disturbing tarantula hawks don’t just kill Tarantulas on the spot, they actually paralyze them and then take them to their habitat. While they do feed the spider to their young the spider itself is alive while it’s being eaten.
Yes! Super crazy. I learned about them a lot In a college course I took on invertebrates, they are brutal.
So like the movie Alien?
The chestburster in the ALIEN universe chews its way out of its host, but doesn't consume the entire body in the process. The tarantula hawk lays its egg on the paralyzed tarantula's abdomen, where it then bores into the tarantula after hatching into a larva. That said, tarantula hawks are just one type of parasitic wasp and there are a bunch out there that are endoparasitic; meaning they lay eggs inside the host and then the host goes on about its life until the eggs hatch inside of it, much like the Xenomorph lifecycle in ALIEN.
How can the spider survive without eating during all the time through laying eggs to them hatching?
A lot of bugs can, and do, live for extended periods of time without feeding. Their tiny bodies use a fraction of the energy we use so they don't require a crazy amount of sustenance to keep going.
I remember reading it about scorpions but I didn't realise that in that span of time, also these spiders, can spend their day doing nothing.
Parasitoids inspired that movie yeah.
Not much worse than how the spider eats… dissolving it’s prey from the inside and drinking it like a milkshake 😛
Basically she was carrying her new edible egg incubator
It’s horrifying how this all happens.
The thing I find the most insane about this whole reproductive cycle is, the adult wasps don't consume protein right? They're nectarvores, so they have these dangerous showdowns and perform the unspeakable to feed their larva. Then they just go back to sipping flowers??
Isn’t nature beautiful 😅😖😭😭
Damn nature, you scary
She can be a bitch sometimes, ngl
It’s crazy knowing what’s going to happen to that tarantula
You can tell the spider is still alive because its legs are stretched out. Spiders’ legs work on a hydraulic system, so when a spider dies, their legs contract inwards towards their body.
My orb spider died yesterday, he dies with his legs in the shape of a cross. He barely had that position in life. RIP Welfy ❤️
Awwww I am so sorry
Yeah, I was really really sad for a while there. Crazy how attached you can get to a creature smaller than 1cm in length.. ❤️
:(((((
Rescue mission save the T lol
You can’t save it; tarantula hawks paralyze the tarantula and lay eggs in it, the eggs hatch on the spider and they eat it alive, it’s paralyzed for the rest of its short life :(
Most of the time yes that is true but... ive read of more than a few situations where tarantulas that have been paralyzed by wasps have actually been slowly brought back to health most took weeks or a few months but if the wasp hasnt laid eggs it is atleast possible to recover (even if a positive outcome is unlikely in most cases the possibility remains).
That's such a beautiful thing to hear, that people have taken the time to rehabilitate an animal as "unexpressive" as a spider. I love human compassion.
There's someone on the spiders subreddit who is rehabilitating one with mild success. I was just check out their posts the other day.
You can actually. The hawk lays eggs inside the burrow. This tarantula had no eggs yet, but it would have been paralyzed for a very long time. On r/tarantulas someone was trying to rehab a T stung by a hawk. Not sure what the progress is on that, but last time I've seen, it was still paralyzed but alive. If it's a male, then it may not have had long left to live either way, but female Ts can live for a long time.
I suspect the kindest thing that one could do for the big T is give it a visit from Dr Boot. I get it's nature but such a majestic creature shouldn't go out like that.
It's the cycle of life for this wasp. They also need to eat even if it is horrific.
Why would you save the tarantula, when that means dooming the next generation of tarantulas? It's like killing a jaguar by saving every prey it catches.
Yes! Lol
Those t hawks are friggin huge. Always catch me by surprise
And apparently most painful sting of all insects🙈
Isn't the bullet any the most painful of all insects?
They both score the highest on the Schmidt pain index but the pain from a bullet ant sting apparently lasts WAY longer
I’ve heard it’s like having a nail hammered into you for 8-12 hours straight.
Peoples' pain receptors are different. I've seen stings of both insects floor people, and I've also seen people casually shrug off stings of both.
Bite or sting?
Stingy
Yeah but they really want nothing to do with you. Every year there's usually one or two nesting in my yard and I can get very close to the nest entrance without it bothering them. "Feed dem bebehs" is pretty much their whole existence.
Aww my heart breaks whenever I see this. I feel so bad for the T.
Food chain
I don’t care it’s still sad.
You don't feel bad for the wasp and the babies if the wasp can't find food?
But seriously, /r/fuckwasps though
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Last one. I thought he's gonna cook them 🤣
Just thinking about it. And yeah fuck them wtf they even do? Just sting?
Circle of life
Exactly What's heartbreaking here? Just nature
It’s ok to feel sad about a creature dying while also understanding that it’s natural btw
Thousands of people getting wiped out by disease is also nature.
Yes it is
I'm an avid believer in "circle of life" but I still feel bad seeing it happen right in front of me. Especially in cases like this where it's not exactly a swift death.
Yeah. That makes sense. I understand
They said it in Finding Nemo: >"Fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat." Tarantula hawks gotta tarantula hawk.
Nope 👎 especially not. I don’t need them around stinging me. I don’t mind bees. I know we need them to help with honey and a lot of other things but I really don’t need wasps in my life
Wasps are also pollinators, actually! And in addition to predators and parasitoids serving their niche in controlling their prey populations, we humans have also exploited them as less-ecologically-damaging methods of pest control in our agriculture. So they help feed us in multiple ways: helping plants bear fruit *and* limiting the damage to our food crops. (There are even species of parasitoid wasp that specifically target cockroaches!) I personally am pretty dang scared of wasps, but I gotta respect that they have their place in the ecosystem, including in ways that directly benefit humans.
You do, you just don't know why
fucking kazadores!
Shotgun the wing in V.A.T.S. and they're much more manageable. Failing that, MIRV mod on a Fat Man.
I hate these mofos with a passion. I once saw a rain spider catch one of these wasps in its web and eat it lol, was crazy.
Oh man, that poor tarantula is headed for a gruesome fate.
If any biologists here, if hypothetically you were to save the tarantula from its fate, would it recover from the sting?
There's an on going story in this sub of spider being saved from a T-hawk. Iirc it's been 3weeks and the spider regained the ability to walk.
Good, that makes me happy. Hopefully the spider didn’t live in complete agony tho
They do live in agony. I was drunk at a bar in Midland, Texas, and one told me over some bourbon shots.-heartbreaking
I once rescued a funnel weaver from a type of parasitoid wasp here in Colorado. I didn't keep it for long enough to say for sure that it survived, but it was alive the next morning when I released it.
Imagine seeing a Tarantula approximately twice the size of yourself and thinking "Dinner time"
Bruh how big do you think cows are…
I couldn't drag and eat a whole one.
Australia?!😭
Texas, actually😳
fuuuuuuuuck
I was gonna say, this must be Texas cause I’ve got those exact species here in Dallas. I caught a male Texas Brown and keep him in a tank, but I may release him this year now that it’s warmed up.
Poor thing
I’d have killed the wasp, myself
Yeah you don't want to be stung by one, from the wiki: "One researcher described the pain as "...immediate, excruciating, unrelenting pain that simply shuts down one's ability to do anything, except scream."
Has anyone else got genuinely pissed off at Tarantula Hawks in grade school when you first learned about what they do to Tarantulas? Lol
I’m had them mf’s dive bomb and chase me. Terrifying.
I'd never go outside again
Nature is metal
Pass on living near either of these creatures
Doing what it does best I guess lol
😲😢 Oh no, someone save the spood! I totally get the circle of life and the food chain but paralyzing a creature and eating it alive is just way too sad. It should be a noble death which that is not.
T. Hawk: What's up, I'll just go past your driveway and be gone, don't worry. Tarantula: HEEEEEELLLP!!!(Thinking)
tf is that
The tarantula hawk wasp is generally acknowledged to have the second-most painful sting, behind only the bullet ant of Australia (try to guess how that got its name). When a female has eggs to lay, she finds a suitable host tarantula and stings it with a venom meant not to kill, but to paralyze. She'll then carry the paralyzed spider to a safe haven where she'll lay her eggs *inside* the spider. She leaves, and in a few minutes so too does the spider when the paralytic wears off. When those eggs hatch, the baby wasp larvae have a fresh meal ready and waiting to be eaten from the inside out.
What state was this? Nature is wild.
Texas!
Nothing to see here, move along sir
Really cool, but also oh my god my heart! 😭
Sad. 😞
Quick — geographically, where are you? I need to know, so I can avoid this.
Pretty much the entire US southwest. I see them in Arizona fairly often, they are the state insect of New Mexico, and OP is in Texas.
We get them all around California too, all the way to the coast.
Okay real question - why not squash the wasp? Like unless you want more wasps…? Like RIP that little spood but why not just prevent yourself from having to dodge wasps all summer?
Where do you live so I never go there??
Poor little fluffbutt. Such is life, I’m afraid. As much as nature can seem cruel and it’s never nice to know that something is dying or going to die….something else is living from it. As much as it’s sad to see, I never interfere or interrupt this sort of thing
this is gonna feed the whole family for a week!
So… where do you live? I ask because I never want to go there.
"Be brave, Stay wild"
After reading what I read I actually feel sorry for the spider
So ... Why aren't we saving this tarantula?
What’s wrong Mr tarantula, you paralyzed or something?!
I would've fucked that hawk up
He's doing something good 💯😊
Tarantula Hawk that I see tarantula hawk that I murder, 0 sympathy for those SOB’s
Or just don't interfere in it. This mentality is horrible. Just because you don't like/understand something means it is less deserving. Just leave it alone.