Incorrect use of apostrophes is rampant on the Internet. It makes me grit my teeth in annoyance. The correct usage for apostrophes is for possessive words and for contractions. The possessive use of apostrophes has an important exception: possessive pronouns. For example: “Tommy’s dog is black and white. It’s also fat and likes to lick its balls.” But what I constantly see on the Internet is this: “The Smith’s have a dog. It likes to lick it’s balls.”
Basic punctuation, folks. You supposedly learned this in school. No apostrophe for plural words. Just because the plural word is a name, as in more than one Smith, doesn’t mean you put in an apostrophe. And the possessive form of “it” does not have an apostrophe. It is its, just as “hers” is hers, not her’s. The contraction of “it is” or “it has” is it’s. Got it? Don’t make me kick your sorry asses into next week.
Now on to something more interesting than correcting lame ass writers on the Internet: tarantula hawks. If you’ve never seen one of these creatures, you have missed out. Despite their misleading name, tarantula hawks are not birds. They are wasps. Big, scary wasps. You can hear them coming. You can see them coming. But they have no interest in you. Aside from mating, their entire focus in life is to track down and capture tarantulas to feed their young. Yikes, you say! Big, scary wasp taking on big, scary spider? What will Nature think of next? (ooh, setting myself up for another buggy post!)
I became fascinated with these wasps when I lived in Arizona. I was startled several times when one of them went buzzing past me at high speed. Then one day I was outside chasing gophers and I spotted a tarantula hawk dragging a tarantula across my yard. We’re not talking push shove pant pant. This thing was booking. Across my large yard, through the fence, down one side of a ditch, and up the other side, then disappearing over the lip and into the brush. Wow.
One of my favorite books, “Seasons in the Desert,” by Susan J. Tweit, has a great description of the life and times of tarantula hawks. I’m going to let her do my talking, as I cannot hope to compete with her lovely prose:
Tarantula hawks, two-to-three-inch-long wasps with metallic blue black bodies and striking, bright orange wings, kill tarantulas to feed their young. The fight between the wasps and the much-larger and heavier spiders is a dramatic one. A female tarantula hawk lures a tarantula out of its burrow, probably by plucking the silken web lines. When the spider rushes out, the wasp hops on its abdomen and paralyzes the tarantula with one or more jabs of its half-inch-long stinger. The wasp then drags the comatose–but not dead–spider back into the burrow, crawls out from underneath it, lays an egg atop the tarantula’s limp body, and seals the burrow. When the wasp larva hatches, it is provisioned with a cache of fresh meat–the comatose spider–to consume as it grows. After spending the winter in a pupa, it digs its way to the surface as a winged wasp the following spring.
A less well-known part of the tarantula hawk story is their mating game. male tarantula hawks, similar to but smaller than females, cruise for mates by “hilltopping.” They position themselves in a tree or shrub atop a hill or other vantage point, and scan the desert airspace, watching for passing females. (This behavior is comparable to a human male picking a barstool with a good view of the dance floor.) When a female tarantula hawk flies by, the first male to spot her gives chase, and, if she is willing, the two copulate briefly on the ground. Afterwards, they go about their separate business: he flies back to his post to scan the air for another potential mate; she heads off to feed on flower nectar and build up her strength for the perilous job of hunting tarantulas.
Female tarantula hawks are apparently somewhat opportunistic about where they bury the tarantula. If they find one in its burrow, they use that burrow to lay their eggs. But they also dig their own holes, or take over empty holes, and then go searching for roaming tarantulas and drag them back to the hole.
Although stings from tarantula hawks aren’t common, because they are too focused on their life mission and are relatively docile as wasps go, they do happen if the wasp is provoked enough. Here is a description by David B. Williams, on the Internet site, DesertUSA, that will make you cringe:
Tarantula hawk stings are considered to be the most painful of any North American insect. Christopher Starr wrote an article entitled, “A Pain Scale for Bee, Wasp and Ant Stings.” On a scale of one to four, Pepsis formosa was one of only two insects to rate a four. This compares with a one for a Solenopsis xyloni (desert fire ant), two for a Apis mellifera (honey bee) and three for a Dasymutilla klugii (velvet ant).
One researcher described the tarantula hawk’s sting this way: “To me, the pain is like an electric wand that hits you, inducing an 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. The pain for me lasted only about three minutes, during which time the sting area was insensitive to touch, i.e., a pencil point poked near the sting resulted only in a dull deep pressure pain.”
Tarantula wasps are unusual in the severity of their stings. Generally, it is the more social insects that deliver the most painful stings because they have a large nest to defend. Researchers hypothesize that the Pepsis as well as the Dasymutilla have evolved such painful stings because they spend so much time out in the open, exposed to potential predators.
Although painful, the Pepsis sting is not especially lethal. It rates a 38 on a lethal capacity scale. This compares with 5.9 for a Dasymutilla klugii, 54 for a Apis mellifera, and 200 for a Pogonomyrmex maricopa (a desert-dwelling seed-harvester ant).
Here are some cool (scary) pictures of tarantula hawks:
Here are some Youtube videos of tarantula hawks in action:
Online references for pictures and text:
www.gravityh.com/wildlife_encounters.htm
http://www.desertusa.com/mag01/sep/papr/thawk.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_hawk
I can’t s’tand it when folks’ practice apostrophe a’buse! Drive’s me nut’s! I dont know how people can read what they write, or what other’s write! There s’hould be a jail for abus’ers!
You are grounded!
Gawd that was hard to type.
wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Because a researcher said the TH sting pain only lasted 3 minutes, don’t expect the same merciful outcome if you get hit. That researcher had taken who knows how many stings from many species over a period of years. Venoms vary, but there are many similar chemical compounds present. Therefore, stings from other species taken before his TH sting could easily have cause build up of specific antibodies so as to greatly reduce the TH consequences. Sting site is of critical importance—a thigh sting is far less risky and painful than a lip/mouth/temple/neck/eye (worst possible) sting, and a sting inside the throat will cause suffocation by swelling. Much smaller red wasps have caused single sting fatalities by being inside a coke can when the fatal swig was unsuspectingly taken. Campers, take care where you sleep and there are also snakes, velvet ants, harvester ants, gila monsters, scorpions and cone nose bugs. Approach the desert Southwest with caution.