SPIDER-HUNTING WASPS

The brood care of the large metallic blue or black spider-hunting wasps is similar to that of digger and clay wasps, but they specialise in spiders as prey. Fights between spider-hunting wasps and their equally dangerous prey can be spectacular. The wasp must paralyse the spider, thus keeping it alive to be consumed gradually by the wasp larva. Some wasps ensure permanent immobility by also biting off the spiders's legs.
In a previous video a wasp pushed an incapacitated caterpillar into its mud structure to serve as food for when the larva are born. Similarly the spider-hunting wasp has to carefully hunt and attack a spider, which potentially could be as poisoness as a wasps sting. The wasp's sting paralyzes the spider but does not kill it. It only immobilizes it.
The spider could be too heavy to lift by air and the wasp has to manouvre the spider over all types of hurdles and obstacles, to the wasp's tunnel in the ground. The wasp's larva in the tunnel will then eat and consurve the live prey.
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