Forecast: 17-25°
Attained: 18-25°

Life and Death in the Kitchen...!

So there I was, doing the washing up, minding my own business, when I see one of the huge orangey Australian wasps dragging an almost full grown, paralysed huntsman spider up the kitchen window. (On the outside, fortunately.)
Fascinated yet repelled I wasn't quick enough to grab my 'phone and take a pic but that wasn't a problem cos the spider was obviously heavy and the wasp dropped it - I heard the thump! - only to struggle up the window again a couple of minutes later.
That's when I got the pics.

For size comparison, the wasp's body is over an inch long (about 3ish cm).*

The wasp dropped the spider about seven times in all, and I mused that it was going to be mush by the time she got it back to her nest.
Anyway, next thing I'm watching the wasp drag the spider inside. Squeaking ensued (from me, duh) but they dropped behind the freezer and didn't reappear. There was a good chance they'd fallen foul of the daddy long legs that live down there and I thought no more of it...

Until half an hour later when the wasp was flying around the house, freaking us all out. No spider in sight but one of the cubs casually mentioned he'd seen a huntsman in front of the toilet. Feeling very brave I took a peek - yep, paralysed spider sprawled on the floor, wacko - then made asked the cub to take it outside for me.

And then a bastard European wasp came inside to check out the kitchen. These things really bother me, but I managed to catch it, more by accident than design, yay for almost empty icecream containers. That went straight in to the freezer, where it could expire relatively peacefully without sending up a distress signal to the rest of the hive. [shudder]

[*I did try to find out what sort it was but the stuff on google images was making me twitchy so I stopped. :) ]

~=o>