Giant Tarantula Hawk Hunting Spiders in 720p HD

This 2.5-inch-long female Tarantula Hawk (Pepsis Wasp) was out early this morning, looking for a victim... She has been attracted by the spider webs under the eve of this house, but since she only eats (drinks) nectar from flowers and fermenting fruit, she's not looking for a tarantula to eat - she has something else in mind...

These wasps are huge and have one of the most powerful stings in the world - said to be only second to the Bullet Ant of South America. First hand accounts describe the pain as like having a red-hot railroad spike hammered through your body! Fortunately the pain only lasts a few hours. Good thing these wasps aren't very aggressive and will usually try to escape by flying away if threatened.

Here's another video showing these large wasps flying and feeding on flowers in slow motion...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWX7b4H0g2Y

The adult Tarantula Hawk wasp, as the name implies, hunts tarantula spiders, but they don't eat them... Instead, the female stings the tarantula repeatedly to paralyze it, then drags it off to an undergtround burrow - sometimes the tarantula' s own home! Then, it lays a single egg on the spider's body and buries it in the underground chamber. When the egg hatches, the wasp larva will devour and develop inside the tarantula until it reaches adulthood, at which time it will dig its way out of the burrow and start its life cycle all over again... Definitely not a good way to go for the spider! :-O

This footage was shot with a Canon HF100 HD camcorder.
The music is "Kaboom" from the "Red Dawn" CD by Technician (yours truly)

Hope you enjoyed the show and glad you didn't get stung! =)

Category:

Pets & Animals

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[RenacuajoCuleao]

JCMDIweirdStuff ... Wow! Excellent camera work.

I have similar wasps, all black, coming to hunt on my balcony. Best I could do is to take a few snapshots and watch them take off with their prey.

[JCMDIweirdStuff]

I've been trying to film one hunting and actually catching a tarantula... no such luck yet, but I'm still trying! Thanks for stopping by :-)

[LPSland4444]

AAAAAAAAARGH!!!

My friend just got stung by a regular wasp, on the vein on her wrist...she's in loads of pain but this looks worsee....ouch

[JCMDIweirdStuff]

I've had a few wasp stings myself, and they are indeed painful... but these things are in a class by themselves and I would want to even imagine the sort of pain they can cause! :-O

[DanLovinGem]

I have just got this Camcorder and i was wondering what software you use to view and edit the MTS video file?

Thanks.

[JCMDIweirdStuff]

I had the same problem when I first got my Canon - I was running Vista and there were no CODECS onboard that I could use to decode it. I finally found ffdshow, a freeware CODEC pack from sourceforge which provided support for MTS (AVCHD) files, and let me use Windows Movie Maker to edit and make movies from them. When I got my Windows 7 machine, it already had a CODEC for MTS and others, so I no longer needed the ffdshow package. Hope this helps! =)

[VagrantNoName]

(Activates VATS)

[ShadowKaiserin]

wow, this wasp is gorgeous. Black and red spells death for spiders everywhere.

[AsianTiga916]

I think their prey is mostly spiders.

[JcmdiStockFootage]

@PERIZ99 Thanks so much =) It was a little scary following this wasp around so closely!

[PERIZ99]

Excellent photography...

[lucas2718]

I want that one minute and 49 seconds of my life back.

[phobiazzzero]

if that shit sting you ..youll end up impotent 4 life!

[kiryu2000]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH CAZADORES!!!!!

[whiteyr44]

@JCMDIweirdStuff Whats interesting about your comment is, what did they start off hunting before they were produced through eating tarantulas... obviously they didn't just appear in a tarantula one day, the ancestors must have hunted something else and through adaption went on to specializing in hunting tarantulas.

[MrWhipification]

i cant believe i watched thw whole thign and not see any action -.- Amazing footage though