Tarantula Hawk Wasp

Some people that I work with at the community center are bug fanatics. One of the managers takes a yearly trip to the jungles of Mexico to collect bugs and beetles and other creepy crawlies that he proudly has on display in his office. I was telling him and another co-worker about the huge bug we saw at the theater the night before and they identified it for me. It is called a Tarantula Hawk Wasp and it has one of the most painful stings in the world! I looked it up in wikipedia and this it what I learned.

"These wasps are usually not aggressive[1], but the sting, particularly of Pepsis formosa, is among the most painful of any insect. Commenting on his own experience, one researcher described the pain as "...immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one's ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream. Mental discipline simply does not work in these situations."[2] In terms of scale, the wasp's sting is rated at the top of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, second only to that of the bullet ant.^[2] Because of their extremely large stingers, very few animals are able to eat them"

So basically these wasps have almost no natural predators because of how painful the sting is. I linked from this explanation to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index and this is what it said:

• 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
• 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
• 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
• 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
• 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
• 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
• 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
• 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
• 4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
• 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

So basically it hunts Tarantulas, stings it so its paralyzed, lays an egg in the spider, then buries it so the egg can hatch and eat the Tarantula while its still alive. But its not all scary. At least the wings are really pretty.