This is the first in a (weekly!) series of posts about interesting/creepy/crawly/mushy/furry/woody species I come across in my zoological hypertext travels.

As I'm sure you're aware, spiders are the bad-asses of the Arthropod world. They sit around in their nests and webs and eat insects like they're going out of style. Of the 40,000 species of spider, Tarantulas (Family Theraphosidae) are probably the most well known and feared. Most people in their right mind will not screw with a Tarantula, but the Species of the Week is not a person. Its a big fucking wasp.

Tarantula Hawk Wasps (Genus Pepsis) enjoy long flights on the beach, wildflowers, shopping for the latest aposematic fashions, and laying eggs in the bodies of paralyzed male Tarantulas. They make short work of unsuspecting Tarantulas by stinging and injecting them with powerful venom:

Tarantula's aren't the only thing Pepsis wasps sting. In fact, they have the #2 most painful sting in the world according to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Schmidt, on the experience of being stung by a Pepsis wasp:

Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).

Ye-ouch! Anyway, once a Pepsis egg is laid in a paralyzed Tarantula's body it develops over time into a squirming larva. The larva will slowly eat the (still living!) Tarantula until it has sufficient nutrients with which to pupate, and become an adult.

Now if that isn't a gross life cycle, I don't know what is. I'm really quite glad I live nowhere near these things, cool as they are.

Hope you enjoyed Species of the Week #1! Next week: monkey + (cat x raccoon) + bee = ???