yesterday I witnessed a wasp with orange wings and a black body flying with a spider in its mouth. after it landed it appeared to be eating the body. does anyone know more about these insects? what is it?
William
11-May-2006 18:40
A very beautiful photo, but the pollen sacs clearly visible on the poor insect's hind legs mean that its a european Honeybee. Great pic, nonetheless! Thanks for sharing this with us.
Ronnie
19-Mar-2006 01:42
I Live in UK and a few years ago witnessed an ordinary wasp attack, kill, and devour a spider on its web. It was a warm sunny day, and I was standing next to some metal rails around head hight. I saw this wasp heading for my face, and thought its going for me, but it sailed past, and as I turned round to follow it, the wasp landed fully on a fairly large spider in the centre of its web, within a couple of seconds the wasp enclosed the spider within its legs spinning it round biting off all the spiders legs in quick succession then biting its head off to be left feeding on the spiders body like a bowl of soup unbelievable unless you witnessed it.
Great shot. Have you ever seen a wasp eat a spider? In Northern CA we have spider wasps who actually stun the spiders and plant their egg inside the live spider. I've seen a stunned spider hauled away by the wasp, but not photographed it.