And suddenly, all my nightmares are made flesh. Thank you for ruining every night’s sleep for evermore.

Does wasp have a different meaning, I thought wasps were strippy insects, a bit like bees but with more attitude!

runs and hides under bed

Make it go awaaaaay!

Euww… they look really nasty! I’m definitely glad I live in the UK now.

That is deeply unpleasant in every single way possible.

Hope that by “I can use a digital camera” she was referring to the zoom feature.

I’m with Annie in the “run” camp, though I must say that “under bed” is probably not my preferred place at a time like this.

Kudos to your mum.

There’s a lotta wasps out there, but that don’t look like no frickin’ wasp to me. Where’s it’s “wasp waist”?!

The spider looks totally dead though.

There’s a creepy insect in Anza-Borrego called the Tarantula-Hawk- it injects its eggs directly into the Tarantula, which, after a bit, bursts into lots of little Tarantula-Hawks, which feed on the Tarantula- while it’s still alive. Gross.

To quote someone, can’t remember who right now - Africa is not for sissies.

BTW these are not the biggest or nastiest examples of either creature that you can readily and easily find hanging around

i think im going to puke. i hate spiders. i dont think i will be visiting you at your parents house when you come home in future.

“And we now go over to our Seth Afrikan correspondent where he’s continuing his theme of “what not to blog”. Hi, Adrian”

“Hi, yeah I’m still sick of people visiting my blog so I thought I’d try and scare the beejesus out of them, with a bit of luck I might even manage to get some people to throw up a little”

Spider was DEFINITELY alive (probably paralysed by the wasp’s sting). The wasp dropped the spider and the spider was swept well away from our kitchen door and we saw the spider move. Wasp came back to find the spider but didn’t know where it was. Shame after all that effort such a nice dinner gone to waste.

okay i think it is time to remove the picture, it is so gross, i had nightmares last night.

Sweet-Mary-Mother-of-God ! This just brings back memories of spiders past - I had to kill one of these in the early hours of the morning with my (almost) bare hands …initially mistaking my specimen for a pile of twigs on the window sill(which were never there before , which at 1:45am doesn’t seem particularly unusual) illuminated against the backdrop of the bathroom window , it was tarantula-sized and I thought it was …until I researched it the next day and think it was just a rain spider …

Please note everyone - if you spray it with Doom , it WILL run towards you !!!! I think I opened fire fairly early and despite my extreme arachnophobia (and running away after fair spray time) it stopped running …unfortunately the next morning I couldn’t find it , which was almost More worrysome ….

I have heard that the spray/fly-swatter combo works well for such instances … but I am not sure I would want such short-range equipment :-p

Sleep well everyone ! ;-)

ewwww - that’s my total nightmare - the LOST spider. I don’t mind it when I see them but I get the total freaks when they then disappear. Isn’t that supposed to mean that you probably ate it during the night?!

Ok, so I know that it’s a total myth, but it still creeps me out.

I… I don’t think I’m ever going to visit South Africa… O_o

shudder

I had to kill two - TWO!!! - of those all by myself and I nearly touched one of them when I went to close a window. Samantha - a sink full of hot water works quite well. Please note: DOOM has the same effect on scorpions.

I shudder

I had to kill two - TWO!!! - of those all by myself and I nearly touched one of them when I went to close a window. Samantha - a sink full of hot water works quite well. Please note: DOOM has the same effect on scorpions.

I

Seemingly dead, but most certainly still alive! That pic shows a female Pepsis wasp (commonly called a Tarantula Hawk) who has just stung and paralyzed the huge hairy tarantula. He’s definitely alive, but unable to move. She will drag him to a burrow, plop him in, and lay a single egg on his bulbous abdomen. Once the egg hatches the wasp grub will become a parasite on his helpless body, eating him alive. When all the edible portions have been consumed (and he mercifully dies) then the grub will go into cocoon and emerge as an adult wasp. That pic really shows the Amazonian strength of the wasp — able to hold in her mandibles a tarantula that usually outweighs her by 6 times; she needs such power to overwhelm and manhandle him into position to administer her paralyzing sting.