There are few things reminding me more of the end of summer than hunting wasps. Today, a buzzing ball of fury fell on the pavement in front of me. A common wasp,
Vespula vulgaris, holding on a male
Eristalis dronefly, desperately trying to escape. The wasp held onto the dronefly's legs, chewing three of them and a wing off, and rendering the dronefly defenceless.
A loose leg and a wing are visible
I was amazed by the determination of the wasp, which was thrown about by the hoverfly while it was only holding by the hoverfly's abdomen.A very short clip shows moments after they landed.
Fascinating encounter. A while ago I watched a similar encounter between a wasp and a spider, but never discovered which prevailed http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/deadlock.html
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting Phil. The encounter related in your blog post is indeed fascinating. The fact that the spider had a web rules out crab spiders, which do not build webs, just sit atop flowers awaiting prey. It is an adult male spider, but other than that, I am not familiar with the species.
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