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🐝 Ants, Bees & Wasps

Brazilian Wanderer Spider Wasp

Pepsis fabricius

About

A large metallic blue-black spider wasp with bright orange wings that hunts tarantulas as food for its larvae. The female paralyzes a tarantula with her sting, then drags it to a burrow where a single egg is laid on the spider. The larva consumes the still-living spider from the inside.

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Did You Know?

Its sting is rated among the most painful of all insect stings, scoring a 4 out of 4 on the Schmidt Pain Index.