Sunday, November 26, 2006

The home wrecker


I had to clean my verandah today. Unfortunately it has to be done from time to time. But I felt as guilty as the barbarian hordes sacking Rome's finest should have felt when I realized I had unwittingly destroyed the fine nursery of a mud dauber wasp.

She had carefully created every cell, and stocked each larder in it with the local spider-fare. It had progressed to the stage where the wasp larvae were quite well developed and visible. You can see one in the top right, attached to the meaty bits of the spider.
Most of the spiders seem to be crab or jumping spiders, something I've noticed before when I've had similar disturbing experiences, for example opening a window (well you have to have fresh air sometimes. Every window in the house is mortared with wasp nests).
Once when accidently peeling open a very fresh nest I was confronted with the most absolute rainbow of flower spiders, it was superb. Each one however beyond rescuscitation.

I'm a bit unsure about the identity of these locally very common mud daubers and potter wasps. The ones I see are always a plain black very discreet looking animal. Most Eumeninae, according to the literature, collect Lepidopteran larvae for their young, which these ones clearly don't. So obviously some homework for me to do.

2 comments:

Snail said...

What a bugger! Those wasps really do need to think ahead rather than just being houseproud for now.

I haven't seen any mud-daubers around my place although they're supposed to be ubiquitous. That Museum Victoria book mentions that the local mud-dauber Sceliphron laetum is a spider specialist.

amegilla said...

Well, it was moi that was being houseproud.
*blush*

Thanks for the nudge Sphecid wise. It came to me in the sleepless small hours.

 
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