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Nature is fascinating and beautiful, but can sometimes also seem terrifyingly cruel. I love nature programs, and I realize all creatures have to eat, but I really cannot stand watching a crocodile dragging down a thrashing wildebeest, or a hawk dropping on a rabbit. Killing in nature is necessary for creatures to survive, but sometimes some of their methods make me shudder.
Just imagine for a minute how it would feel to be captured, injected with a paralysing drug, and then dragged off and sealed up in a coffin. With you in the coffin are ten of your mates, all similarly paralysed. And lying next to you in the dark is an egg. It is the egg of a predator ominously waiting to hatch. When it does, you, alive and helpless will be its first meal. This is the story of the wasp and the spider – actually twelve spiders (baby wasps obviously have a big appetite).
A while ago there was a serious buzzing coming from somewhere at the back of one of the kitchen shelves where I keep various small jars and a few old wooden egg cups. I thought a fly was trapped and when I poked around at the jars something flew out in fast and furious style. Assuming it was gone for good I forgot about it, but later in the day the buzzing was there again in the exact same place. I examined the shelf contents and found a little pod attached to the base of one of the wooden egg cups. It was about an inch long, completely sealed, and appeared to be made from a sort of hard sandy material. Unfortunately I didn’t think to photograph this one.
I’ve seen pods like this before and I knew it was something to do with a wasp, but all the ones I’ve seen before have been opened and empty. Curious, I took it outside and broke it open. This was what was inside:
There were no less than eleven little spiders, and one small white wasp egg. I think the spiders were all the same type – tiny jumping spiders. I left them in the garden but sadly I expect they all died anyway. I then cleaned up the egg cup and returned it to the shelf. The next day I couldn’t believe it, Mrs Wasp was back beavering away in the back of the shelf sounding like a pneumatic drill. Cheeky sod! Prepared with my trusty flour sieve I flushed her out and caught her and popped her in a jar. It’s very difficult photographing a frenetic wasp in a jam jar so please excuse the poor shot.
After her photo shoot I let her go with strict instructions to take her nasty egg-laying habit somewhere else, and not to come back. When I pulled out the egg cups I found that she’d already constructed a new pod, but this one was not completely sealed.
When I broke the pod open just one little spider fell out and there in the shell was a new egg. I assume that Mrs Wasp must hunt down her victims one by one and reopen and then re-seal the pod each time. When she’s supplied her egg with enough bodies she makes a full seal and flies away.
Poor little spiders! But is this type of death any worse than ending up in a spider’s sticky web and thrashing around until Mrs Spider tears over, injects you with her paralysis venom, wraps you swiftly into a neat parcel and hangs you in her larder until she’s ready for dinner? There is a saying us humans use: ‘What comes around goes around’, I’m wondering if it doesn’t sometimes apply to nature? In my next life I definitely want to come back as a squirrel!
The Writer in the Woods 
we always called those ‘dirt daubers’ but i never knew that they held spiders as prisoners untill they became the hatchlings’ first meal. wow.
you did a great job documenting the process… thank yyou for a very interesting and informative post. i will never look at a dirt duaber nest without wanting to rescue the spiders!
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You could have nightmares imagining you were one of those spiders! Especially if you have an over-active imagination! 🙂
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Throat-swallowing, carnage, and visceral come to mind. Your post delivery is out of this world! Incredibly interesting read about animalistic side of things.
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Thanks Rommel! Like I said – in my next life I’m definitely coming back as a squirrel. Don’t want to be a predator, I’ll live on nuts thank you very much!
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not to be a spoil sport, but there have been some grey squirrels which are not native to these parts, and there are quite a few of them. some of them are predators. i was shocked and saddened to hear the cries of protest and lament of a mother bird when a squirrel had invaded her nest and was attacking it and her offspring.
in any case, your spider story reminded me of a wasp/hornet story. we usually keep one of the living room windows open a crack during the summer. one summer we kept noticing what appeared to be a hornet – much more black in colour than the usual yellow jacket wasps found in this corner of the planet – flying in our living room. i don’t know how often i would let it out, sometimes through the front window, sometimes out the back.
i don’t know how it happened, but one day, as we were closing the living room curtains, we discovered that deep in one of its folds was the making of a hornets’ nest. it was already several centimeters in diameter!
fascinating indeed, but not something to be had in a living room. so we took down the curtain to wash it, and disposed of the nest. and we kept the window closed for some time after that.
the nerve! 🙂
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At least we don’t have the grey squirrels here, ours are all red and as far as I know are vegetarians. Following our wasp incident we’ve now had a preying mantis incident! Mrs Mantis has left a little sac with (so I’ve read) 3 – 4 hundred eggs in it, attached to the underside of the handle of one of our rubbish bins. Apparently these will hatch out next spring when the weather warms up. It should be interesting! I do love nature.
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A great story with fabulous photos, Jude! I have never seen this type of coffin-like construction before. A terrible way to go, very gruesome indeed!
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Enough to give you nightmares! Glad you enjoyed it Pete 🙂
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