Mud Daubers - these flying creatures don't need us, but they love spiders

[Bob]

It's been said that the bees need us and we need the bees for pollinating.

However another flying creature is a bit of a strong predator who likes spiders. And paralyzes the spiders so that they can be used for food for their young.

We know that spiders can and do paralyze their food trapped in their webs to keep the food alive and the juices fresh for eating..

I was watching a mud dauber going after a spider who had made a web on one of my security cameras. This wasp walked on the web, not getting stuck, took the spider, stung it, and flew away to its nest.

Fascinating little creature. I had seen a few of them around the property a few days ago, and was fascinating seeing this type of body.


https://bugguide.net/images/cache/EQO/04Q/EQO04QC0UQUKIKVK4KDKXKBKHKNKZKA0EQC02QA0PQPK4Q10QK 9KHKC02QO02QRS6QWK4QT0SK6K4QWK6QPKZKWKPQ.jpg

From: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/those-spiders-are-zombies/


Paralysed and waiting: We accidentally broke open a mud-dauber wasp nest under our house yesterday while moving some equipment.

The mud cells were packed with paralysed jumping spiders of multiple species. The adult female wasp captures and paralyses the spiders and then packs them into the mud cells. She then lays an egg before closing the cell over with mud.

The spiders are paralysed, but not killed so that they do not rot and the wasp larva can consume them over time. I rearranged the contents of one cell for this photograph. A wasp larva is in the centre in the process of consuming a spider.

Mud daubers collect these spiders to feed their young. Mud daubers are often even better than scientists at finding spiders, capturing up to 25 spiders in a day.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-09-team-wasps-exotic-joro-spider.html#jCp

Nest making:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWr66LEqav0

At least my camera lenses are kept clean this way ! And a wasp goes on to live another day..

[Bob]

During the night I saw the spider(s) come back out of hiding onto the camera and they started to place a new web around the infra-red laser illuminator. Apparently they are able to see the heat-light emission, where at night to our eyes, it is a very faint dull red color.

Today I watched the mud dauber female come back to pick thru the web to apparently find a spider hiding in the corner of the web. She flew off with a spider to her nest. I haven't found where that is yet. We also have paper wasps, and yellow jackets, and a very small type of wasp which goes after flies (natural biological control).

[william r sanford72]

You havnt mentioned the daubers ability to make almost perfect spheres/balls of mud...as a kid that always and still fascinates me to no end..Mud daubers are also pretty tolerant of humans and very passive as far as wasp go...

[Bob]

You havnt mentioned the daubers ability to make almost perfect spheres/balls of mud...as a kid that always and still fascinates me to no end..Mud daubers are also pretty tolerant of humans and very passive as far as wasp go...

I like the buggers too. They capture spiders. All I have seen the spiders do is capture a wayward moth..

Glad you mentioned their mud gathering technique. BTW I am always letting out side the little wasps which go after flies. Can't imagine why we have any HorseFlies out here tho.. nothing bigger than some muledeer this time of year. Come September now and the elk and moose will be out in full swing - like hundreds of elk, but sadly maybe only 5-6 moose.. Had one of the little yearlings at my front door.. Great to be in the middle of no-where. :) but clearly in the middle of nature, when it comes to critters..

[william r sanford72]

Indeed also live in some ways... in the middle of no where...ive learned to catch very large wood spiders and wolf spiders by hand that tend to invade the house throughout the summer and fall months..to let go.The invasion is more than likely due our use of a wood stove and our lack of mowing that results in the spiders and the seasonal spider invasion that I really don't look forward to..and try to tolerate..

[Bob]

I use a wood stove too during fall and winter months, and of course it's amazing what comes in with the wood.. the carpenter ants tho are something else.. the spiders that come in or hatch i will let outside carefully in a cup, preferably into a warm area in the winter near the wood shed. Might as well give them a chance, but not inside the main house tho..

I am amazed that the dauber(s) are able to precisely recall and get back to where they found their cache of spiders.. Such a small brain and so much flight data..

Have you seen the little wasps that are predatory on flies?

[william r sanford72]

yes we have em tho not as many as I would like...they are small and we have a few species.i have seen more of the type that hit the fly pupae stage as of late.its brutal as the lay the eggs by puching through the maggot/fly eggs casing and hatch out and consume the maggot/baby fly long before it has a chance to evolve..you can see a hole in the fly eggs where the young wasp emerge after dinner.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

What's interesting to me is that wasps and ants are controlled by some kind of hive mind or programming. Studies have shown that they aren't very good at learning new things individually, though the colony as a whole is able to adapt. It's a very strange subject.

On the other hand, crickets seem to have a lot more awareness of what is going on around them.

And who isn't at least a little bit creeped out by praying mantises? Especially after all of that Simon Parkes crap, whether he was full of it or not, that stuff is kind of creepy. It reminds me of Rick Straussman's work with DMT, and all the people under the influence of DMT who see praying mantis-like aliens. Weird.

[Bob]

That hive mind might help to explain how come they can find a flight path over quite a distance and land precisely back in the desired spot where they find their prey.

Truman Cash also has some data on the Mantis' - The whole insect thing - bugs and spiders, most certainly a most amazing difference from 2 and 4 legged creatures, and aquatic critters. Earth's Living Things could be filled up with topics to discuss.

[AutumnW]

I love that they go after other bugs but leave you and your jelly sandwich the **** alone! But jumping spiders? That's super sad. Those little dudes are the second most intelligent invertebrates after Cephalopoda! I spent weeks reading all I could about these spiders. Eight legs good. Six legs ba aa aa aad!;)

[william r sanford72]

true to a point A Voice from the Mountains tho I would suggest there is a type of adapted learning going on in the single ant or wasp that is required to adapt to unforeseen situitions that may occur while out scouting ..hunting or mating and so forth..the honey bee is a great example of a worker bee learning as it goes..tho it is all geared to support the greater good of the nest or hive...and would agree that moving outside of this Dna programming isn't gonna happen..i havnt the taste nor desire to embrace the hive mind as far as we the people/humans go..and much like the Mud dauber and parasitic wasp and countless other insects..the mantis is another truly wonderfull insect made to almost near perfection to do what it was made to do..I don't adopt parkes op or inside info on the mantis he goes on about..the mantis I marvel at and admire have nothing to do with aliens or parkes..
The DMT and mantis connection your talking about is interesting and might need a thread all its own...

[shaberon]

I am not sure if it's a dauber, but there is a wasp that is required for the production of most varieties of figs.

The fig is not a fruit. It's an inflorescence, which is something like a closed flower. Most kinds rely on a wasp going inside to get the pollen. If the wasp leaves, the pollen travels; if not, the fig develops its fruitlike quality and digests the wasp. So most figs contain digested wasps.

Kind of makes you wonder, how did figs survive before wasps figured out how to do this, but if I remember rightly, it's inter-dependent. Closed fig can't spread its own pollen, and is the only place the particular wasp can lay eggs.

For their size, wasps are extremely powerful and can pull apart bodies and shells and so forth...the human equivalent would be something like tearing another person as if they were paper.

I'm not creeped out by mantises even slightly...those and wasps being some of my favorite things. Spiders too, but not so much for eating, wasps can have them.

[Bob]

That is mindblowing Shaberon ! Thank YOU! (I will think twice when I get the crunch inside of biting into a FIG what that exactly is that is crunching :) let's read on to see what the official explanation is about that nice crunchy experience :)

readers see: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/fig-wasp1.htm for reference on the FIG-WASP relationship


What we call a fig (a structure called the syconium) is more inverted flower than fruit, with all its reproductive parts located inside.

After a female fig wasp flies over from the fig plant she emerged from, she must travel to the center of the syconium to lay her eggs. To get there, she climbs down through a narrow passage called the ostiole.

The passage is so cramped that the tiny fig wasp loses her wings and antenna during her claustrophobic trek. Once inside, there's no getting back out and flying to another plant -- but is she in the right place?

and


Fig plants boast two kinds of figs: male caprifigs and female edible figs.

If a female wasp enters a caprifig, she'll find male flower parts that are perfectly shaped to hold the eggs she'll eventually lay.

The eggs will grow into larvae, which will develop into male and female wasps.

After hatching, the blind, wingless male wasps will spend the remainder of their lives digging tunnels through the fig.

The female wasps then emerge through these tunnels and fly off to find a new fig -- carrying precious pollen with them.

If a female fig wasp enters an edible fig, she eventually dies from exhaustion or starvation. The female flower parts include a long stylus that hinders her attempts to lay her eggs. She may die, but she succeeds in delivering the much-needed pollen first. So a fig farmer winds up with caprifigs full of wasp eggs and edible figs full of seeds.

Though edible figs may not be filled with baby wasps, doesn't this mean that these figs contain a lot of female wasps who died of loneliness?


1. When a female wasp dies inside an edible fig, an enzyme in the fig

called ficin breaks down her carcass into protein. The fig basically digests the dead insect, making it a part of the resulting ripened fruit. The crunchy bits in figs are seeds, not anatomical parts of a wasp.

2. Fig farmers want to keep the number of wasps entering edible figs to an acceptable minimum. While the insect's cooperation is mandatory for the fig to ripen, too many wasps entering will result in over-pollination. Then this fig might be filled with so many seeds that the fruit-like syconium bursts open.

While this is good for the plant, it hurts the finished harvest for farmers. To prevent this, farmers separate male and female trees over great distances.

Farmers also supply a controlled number of new wasps, often delivered in paper sacks, to dictate exactly how many females have access to a given plant. This means fewer wasps inside when the time comes to harvest.

3. It's also important not to get too bent out of shape over the possibility of accidentally eating the occasional insect.

Even with the use of modern pest control, insects partially contaminate most agricultural products upon harvest and on the way to market.

From canned corn to curry paste, from premium coffee to peanut butter, most foods contain insects.

For example, when tomato ketchup qualifies for the highest USDA grade standard possible, it's required to contain no more than 30 fruit fly eggs per every 100 grams (3.5 ounces) [source: North Carolina State University Department of Entomology].

For some people, no amount of explaining is likely to suffice.

Some vegetarians and vegans refuse to eat figs and fig products based on the possibility of insect content.

The dead wasps in question, however, were just playing their vital ecological role.

There are 900 species of fig wasp, and each is responsible for pollinating one or two species of fig plant.

Without these tiny insects, there would be no figs -- and vice versa.

OK so according to the explanation, that CRUNCH is not a whole wasp..

[amor]

It appears to me that everything on this planet has been constructed with integrated programming, some using the hive mind, which is probably external to the creatures it operates. This programming is in a computer-like device which operates all life and existence. This introduces the thought that (1) either the warring between various tribes of humans is programmed for the benefit of a higher unit than the humans being manipulated or (2) The differing races of humans were brought together from other worlds to avoid disasters and are operating at cross purposes to survive and/or (3) The conflicts created in human interactions come together to provide new knowledge for the controlling computer mind, etc.

[Bob]

Curious Amor, where did you find those conclusions? Assuming in your statement that you mean that the Mud-Dauber's are controlled by that 'computer' ? Where is such located? Who built it/when?


Amor: "This programming is in a computer-like device which operates all life and existence. This introduces the thought that (1) either the warring between various tribes of humans is programmed for the benefit of a higher unit than the humans being manipulated or (2) The differing races of humans were brought together from other worlds to avoid disasters and are operating at cross purposes to survive and/or (3) The conflicts created in human interactions come together to provide new knowledge for the controlling computer mind, etc."

[shaberon]

Yes, that was a better detail about the figs. It mostly applies to the older Mediterranean varieties; two or three North American ones do not require this. But that's still bewildering how 900 kinds of wasps work with one or two kinds of figs, apparently mandatory for the survival of plant and insect alike. Hive mind adaptation, or were they somehow born as a team?

True also about the levels of eggs, toenails, and other things I won't mention, persistently present in most food products. If you get down to it, plants consume insects and animals constantly, as the latter are broken down into compost, or are distributed as blood or bone meal fertilizers. I suppose there are at least some vegetarian vegetables, but most of them must at least be omnivores. Some very hardcore organic growers will not use something like blood meal, not because it came from an animal, but because the animal may have consumed toxins.

The nice thing about most wasps is that their nests are visible. Unlike a Boring Bee, which can hide a 2" hole somewhere in your wall and fill it with a colony. Or the ground-dwelling yellowjackets that nearly killed me; I think those are a type of hornet. Sadly, most people want those nests cleared as soon as they're found. But I have never really noticed wasps to be aggressive unless disturbed; in fact, they're pretty easy to get ahold of and let them walk on your arm or something like that.

Also, unlike a bee, whose stinger rips out of its body and kills it, the wasp is made to keep on stinging. If they can get twenty-five spiders a day, they must have a fast recharge, or a way of controlling the dose. General safety note: this is what makes a small copperhead more dangerous than an adult; an adult will mostly control its dose (because they have a limited supply), whereas the juvenile pumps out everything it's got.

[earthdreamer]

Sometimes in the winter months I would hear a tapping noise on the house and find that a smart little bird pecked holes all along dirt dauber nests. The food chain continues.......

[A Voice from the Mountains]

I spent weeks reading all I could about these spiders. Eight legs good. Six legs ba aa aa aad!;)

If I decided to read one book about spider intelligence and behavior, which one would you recommend as the most interesting?