Alright, so the internet is distracting me still, but I had to share this one; yes, even with you insect-phobes who’ll be visiting. My co-worker Alex and I had a close encounter the other night… with a Tarantula Hawk. (How’m I s’posed to sit on a story about a bug with a name that cool!?)

So you can Google the sucker if you like, but most of the pics you’ll find won’t look like the kind we have in the Caribbean. (Ours is just a different, apparently seldom-photographed, variety.) A Tarantula Hawk is a wasp. A four-inch-long wasp. Whose thorax is as big around as my thumb. So I’m standing in the surf shop with Alex and we had one of those moments where I’m listening to him talk and then suddenly my eyes focus on something behind him and go all wide. This wasp flew into the store, attracted by the lights (it was nighttime) and started just sort of buzzing around. Wasn’t aggressive or nothin’, but there was no one in the store (slow season is boring) and so Alex and I spent a good 20 minutes checkin’ it out.

As insects go, this sucker was beautiful. Its (giant!) body and wings were irridescent blue-black and it’s little feeler/antennae were bright orange. It got itself tangled in some cobweb, so we had lots of time to look at it while it wrestled free.

It wasn’t ’til I got home and Googled the sucker, though, that I discovered how horrifying it is. Not only is the sting of the female reputed to be the most painful wasp sting in the world (though not deadly), but their namesake is super-gruesome. The female captures a tarantula and paralyzes it. Then, she drags him back to a burrow – either one she’s built, or the poor tarantula’s own – lays a single egg, and seals the whole thing up with the paralyzed tarantula inside. That way, when the egg hatches, the larva has a nice warm meal waiting for it. O_O Augh! Poor bastard.

Island living is never boring, I’m here to say. No one I’ve talked to has run into one of these before, though, so don’t be thinking (you know who you are!) that these things are everywhere. We just got lucky. : )

Back to work (and then to sleep)!
Kelly

p.s. I just discovered - thank you, Wikipedia - that the Tarantula Hawk is the state insect of New Mexico. Obviously.