October 5th, 2010 - Grand Canyon West, Eagle Point
I got these photos of a Tarantula Hawk at the big tent at Eagle Point. It was crawling around on the sidewalk. Tarantula Hawks are a type of Wasp. They have a painful sting. They are about 1.5 to 2 inches long.
They sting a Tarantula to paralyze it, and then lay an egg on the Tarantula's abdomen so that when the larvae hatches it will have something to live on. The Tarantula is not dead, just paralyzed, so essentially the Tarantula is eaten alive.
A close-up of the stinger on a Tarantula Wasp
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