Tarantula Hawks

[Schiada76]

On the bug issue.
Anyone ever get stung by one of those Tarantula Hawks at the river? jawdrop

[Boozer]

WTF is a Tarantula Hawk?

[Boozer]

Tarantulas have quite a few enemies, but none more dreaded than the cold-blooded tarantula hawk, a large blue-black wasp with orange wings. If one of these creatures latches onto a tarantula, it’s really big time bad news for the spider. Here’s why: first the wasp will paralyze the tarantula with its stinger. Then it will drag it into a burrow where it will lay a single egg right on top of it. Finally, it will cover everything with dirt.
And then comes the bad part: one day, a worm-like wasp larva emerges from the egg. And do you know what it does? It starts eating that poor, paralyzed tarantula while it’s still alive! And this could last up to three months!

[Schiada76]

It's GIANT blue/black wasp 3" plus in length that kills tarantulas. They also fly around your deck at night at Parker and scare the crap out of the wives and kids.
They are also very hard to kill. We have electric fly swaters that zap the hell out of them but can't kill em. I tried to crush one with a giant glass ashtray the other night and it just pissed him off. Do a search for tarantula hawk. eek!

[1stepcloser]

As a matter of fact, I have been stung by one of these spawn of the devil.
I can tell you that it is one hell of a buzz kill.
I was at Echo a number of years back, minding my own business when out of nowhere I felt a mind numbing pain on my left shoulder. I seriously thought I had been shot. The pain started as an extermely sharp point and grew, very quickly, into an overwhelming shroud of blinding hot white pain. I let out a yelp that would rival any wild animal.
There is no way to be cool and supress the pain when one of these hellions stings you, all hope of that will be quickly vanquished. Instinct will take over. You will be forced to comply.
The extreme pain lasted about six hours, (I'm told it was about 3 to 4 minutes I was wailing like a baby, but it sure as hell felt like six hours) then tapered off to a dull throbbing pain not unlike a severe hangover headache.
The little bastard left a good sized welt in his wake as well.
The upside to this is they are not particularly harmful to humans, unless there are ladies around, in which case your pride will be forever damaged.
If these evil creatures should lite near you, RUN!! get away. Do not try to kil them. Satan and his army cannot be killed.

[Schiada76]

Yeah right, you pussy. :D
The web search says they just have the MOST PAINFULL sting of any insect in the Northern Hemisphere.
Anyone know where I can get a kevlar wasp suit for battling these demons while on Tequila?
I'm hooking the wasp swatter to 110 on the next trip. jawdrop

[Ian]

What's happening BradP? I was getting ready to invite myself out to Echo one of these weekends until I heard about these bastards :D . How's that boat of yours running?

[HammerDown]

Forensic:
One of these...
http://www.desertusa.com/mag01/sep/papr/photos/thawk.jpg
http://209.133.64.45/insects_spid/insects_spid_l/IS0010_1l.jpg Oh yea, well here in Philly..our common house Fly would kick that Butterflys ass! :D

[Schiada76]

Ian:
What's happening BradP? I was getting ready to invite myself out to Echo one of these weekends until I heard about these bastards :D . How's that boat of yours running? Ian, you're welcome at Echo anytime. Can you make Redrock in September? If so reserve a beach site at Echo now Slowpoke will have the Howard there too.
Don't worry about the hawks they're actually quite sporting when they're doing flybys on the deck. The electric swatter slows them down enough that we can crush them with a big rock. :D
The boat runs great, I just need to throw the fng dominators in the trash and put my old carbs back on. :mad:

[Schiada76]

DMN DBL PST
[ July 10, 2003, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: BradP ]

[Kurtis500]

I got zapped once a few years back. Just put a shirt on at the lake not knowing one had been sitting inside. Felt a loud buzzing when he tried to get out, then BAM. It hurt, and the sore stuck around for a few days. He was a smaller one, not fully grown I would guess.
[ July 10, 2003, 07:59 AM: Message edited by: Kurtis500 ]

[G-Ride]

A funny story..a few weeks ago we were at Echo Lodge with a group of people and a buddy of mine who has been known to eat bugs or a spoonful of catfish bait or whatever for money decides it would be funny to put this bug in his mouth and then pretend to kiss his wife without her knowing..well before we knew it he popped a bug in his mouth and went to kiss his wife. Luckily at the last minute he chickened out and just put his cheek to hers and lets it fly out, she was freaked out, but not as freaked out as we were when we noticed he had put the biggest F'in trantula hawk in his mouth!! I couldn't beleive this thing didn't sting his F'in tongue so bad that it swole up and choked his ass!! :D