Just When You Thought It Safe To Go Out The Back Door!

  Sometimes, it takes a tragedy for us to see beauty.  Last evening, I headed out to the compost pile to discard the scraps of the day's meals.  Several baby raccoons visit the heap each night to feast upon our leftovers.  Tossing the scraps not only helps to clean the kitchen, it also feeds some of my bayou friends.  This has become the nightly ritual of house cleaning!

  It was on the way back into the house that I noticed another friend in distress.  A bright red spider had fallen from above the door and down to the back porch floor.  The lovely creature was clearly not doing too well but I could see no sign of injury.  The poor thing writhed in agony as I watched.  Then, as if on cue, a small black wasp flew in and attempted to show me who was boss.  No, it did not sting but rather tried to intimidate me by getting in my face.  Hmmph!  Sorry, wasp. I was more interested in the spider.  

  The wasp settled down and soon showed me why it was so upset with my presence.  The wasp had obviously stung the spider and was attempting to carry it off to its nest.  The wasp was a ground wasp that needed the spider as food for its upcoming offspring.  The wasp, being much smaller than its prey, tugged and tugged at the huge spider.  Finally, it made progress and soon disappeared over the edge of the porch floor.  The show had ended for the evening.

  The spider was one of the many orb weavers that inhabit the area.  This one was called a Cross Spider and for good reason.  The white markings on its abdomen were almost the perfect replica of a highly ornate cross!  What a thing of beauty!  Another fact noticed was that the abdomen was quite swollen. This spider was gravid!  Well, that saddened me to no end.  No baby spiders would be roaming the place any time soon.

  The wasp, on the other hand, was a small black wasp.  Yep...it was actually called (for the lack of a better name) a Small Black Wasp by an "knowledgeable" insect identifier group.  Hmmm..well, I could have identified it as that had I only used my head.  It was small and it was black.  So...Small Black Wasp, it is.  These wasps are ground wasps meaning they dig holes in the ground to use as nests.  The female wasp hunts spiders to sting and paralyze.  She, then, hauls the spider to the her hole and proceeds to shove the spider down into one of the several cells. She pokes the spider into a cell then lays an egg near it before capping off that cell.  Keep in mind, the spider is not dead.  It is merely paralyzed so it will not decay before the wasp egg hatches.  The wasp larvae will begin to eat the spider while it is still alive.  

  That circle of life takes a funky turn with these two.  In the current case, the wasp managed to overpower the spider.  That made the wasp the predator.  However, it could have been just the opposite.  Had the wasp been caught in the spider's web, a different scenario would have taken place.  The spider would have eaten the wasp and it would have nourished her eggs.  The baby spiders would have been born.

  It just goes to show that you never know what is happening just outside the back door.  Predators of all sizes and shapes can be lurking directly above your head or below your feet!  Take a look outside!  Things are interesting!