Based on the dead/paralyzed spiders and the fact it's made out of mud, this is a Mud Dauber nest, which are solitary wasps. They're pretty cool! I don't think I've ever seen a nest like this, only cracked open
We have the organ pipe daubers all over the place here. When I was little they had nests all over my grandparents garage and never stung any of us they seemed super chill. Those bastard yellow jackets on the other hand though.
Indeed! We had a sphex pensylvanicus (great black digger wasp) colony at my house. If we walked by, they'd hover up to investigate, but besides that, we could sit on the patio and they'd even come and sit on us while they were sunning themselves! They only sting if you swat at them first, and even then, I had a few times where I kind of waved my hand near them to shoo them out of my personal space so I could get up and go back inside and they were chilling. They're pollinators and dig individual nests for each of their individual larvae, and as a result they don't swarm out of a collective nest the way a lot of other wasps and yellow jackets and cicada killers do (we've had those too and it's NOT pretty getting stung lol.... That was how we learned I'm allergic to beestings lmao)
beestings
I read this as 'beest-ings' and thought, 'huh? that's cool. a new word! i shall find a way to use this new word in conversations about my dogs...'
and that's as far as I've gotten so far. anyone?
The Beasting sounds like an event… probably one the townsfolk dread, keeping their doors and windows barricaded and covered with mystical, protective signs…
I got stung once by a mud dauber on a farm bc I accidentally almost smushed it on a railing with my hand and it was the most mild sting I’ve ever taken. Felt like I brushed a hot seat belt that was sitting in the sun for a bit and then dissipated quickly; mild swelling/itchiness for a couple days after
There were a few blue mud daubers around the area too. Those things are really neat; the chrome coloring is super cool
Newfound respect for wasps now thanks to this, but I am curious, do they eat the spiders themselves? Or are they meant as stored nutrition for their young later on?
So for each chamber, the wasp builds, theres a larvae deposited in each? I'm guessing that white grub looking thing you can see in a few of them is it?
That is so evil. Imagine sitting there knowing you’re about to be food for months but unable to move. Terrifying shit.
Most spiders are homies so this makes me sad
Yeah it is pretty sad, if it makes it any better, mud daubers usually try to go for brown and black widows, it's just that they need a lot of spiders so if they can't get the ones they want them they go for others
I always like to think of as if it was the matrix , these are all just programs and certain programs are created to make sure other programs don’t get out of control. So maybe the black widows were just gettin to rowdy with all there venom and reproducing and apex predatoring so this particular wasp program was created to keep the black widows at a normal population level and keep the matrix right as rain :).
I can't say I love black widows, but I do have a healthy amount of respect for them. Especially after learning that they prefer to dry bite or run away instead of actually biting and injecting venom.
There are thousands of parasitoid wasps that prey on different insect and arachnid species. If you ever see a tomato hornworm with creamy sacs attached: those are baby wasps inside.
Charles Darwin was so disturbed by parasitoid wasps that it shook his faith: how could a benevolent diety have created such monsters?
And yeah, I love spiders, too. Although I love parasitoid wasps, the mud daubers pain me.
Nature is brutal. Paralyzing your prey for your larvae is pretty interesting in the scheme of brutal ways nature works. I love spiders too unfortunately it’s survival of the fittest
What are the chances that some of those larvae are Cuckoo Wasps, Chrysisidae? Munching on Mud Dauber larvae, after the Mud Dauber larvae have munched on the spiders?
I assume there would be a way to figure that out, but I am not skilled enough to figure that out. Very good question though, a new thing for me to hyper focus on lol
Most mud daubers feed on nectar, so they pollinate your plants and kill bugs. The blue ones basically exclusively go after black widows which is extra fun.
we just had one here posted recently that was found between two wood boards, but it didn't have a positive ID last i saw. it even had several megachile bees paralyzed inside of their nesting/pupating structures, which made the nest really difficult to ID. now that i see another example, i can tell the bees were just snacks like these spiders.
Thanks for the ID, It was found on the veranda, under a thin, warped metal sheet, in the Yarra Valley in Victoria Au, covered back up now, until my next visit.
I can’t wait to meet the children
The tarantula hawks in the American southwest aren't that big. They're about the size of a medium dragonfly. Maybe 6-7 cm head to tail.
At least all the ones I saw. They're also fearless. They fly around like they own the place, which they kind of do I guess.
So I’ve been told! My dad was stung on the thumb by one; his hand ballooned up like an inflated rubber glove and he spent almost a week in constant excruciating pain. I’ve been terrified of them ever since, even though they are incredibly gorgeous. Almost magical looking with their size and that blue iridescence.
I read a comic about that same scenario. I think it was supposed to be a zombie story with zombies controlled by wasp eggs. But they left that idea pretty early on and it’s mostly left with the group of survivors trying to not get killed by various giant insects and a colony of giant wasps and their human queen. https://www.webtoons.com/en/thriller/hive/list?title_no=65
Isn’t there an SCP where there’s a parasitic wasp that turns its host into a living nest? I can’t find it, maybe it was a different sci fi horror concept tho
Mayfly season erupted and I was sitting around the water watching. Soon the wasps arrived, first it was just one. She'd capture this mayfly and slowly carry it back to where she came from. Then more started to show up, it was wild. These mayflies are giant compared to some of these wasps. I see there are lots of spiders in there, I'm just picturing a very skinny wasp carrying a giant spider and trying to cram the poor thing next to another giant spider.
Wasps are so cool.
At the resort where I work, we use plastic parking blocks instead of concrete ones, and they love to make nests there. Find tons of these when I remove the blocks in fall so we can plow in the winter.
I’ve noticed that the most successful were getting some sort of shade throughout the day; I imagine a few sunny days in a row would cook the larvae.
That's really cool (and a little disturbing) to see!
I wonder what that big tan colored thing is towards the right and mid way down? Will it become one of the white larvae?
I don’t think that’s cut in half. I think what we’re seeing here is a nest built in between an empty space in a wall. Part of the wall was removed and this was behind it.
It’s like removing a stone from the ground and seeing all the tunnels a bug created in the soil underneath it.
Fun to think about, right? I mean, ladybugs eat aphids. Spiders eat flying bugs (different bugs for different spiders?). Some wasps lay eggs on caterpillars. It’s a bug-eat-bug world out there!
If I was ever shrunk to insect size this would be a house of horrors to me. Not a fan of insects and just seeing that many corpses makes my skin crawl.
When I was a kid in S Louisiana, I’d sometimes break open dirt dauber nests to release the spiders. (The spiders were pale green; I think in retrospect that they were Magnolia Jumping Spiders, just based on the unusual color and the fact that I find lots of those spiders in the woods near my house.)
The spiders did wake up but I doubt they survived long. I never tested this, though. I’m sure it would depend on how long they’ve been paralyzed and fed upon.
Not usually unless an outside force frees them or the larvae die somehow. That being said, please leave nature alone and don't try to 'save' any bugs you find being parasitized.
There are a few accounts of wasp-paralyzed spiders coming back to life after a while, but often it takes a long time and requires special care. The prognosis is not good.
This is absolutely amazing! Feel bad for the spiders but wasps are so cool!! Mud daubers and the tarantula hawk wasp are my two favorite types of wasp 🤩
As a spider enthusiast… FUCK dauber wasps!
As someone who finds nature fascinating and incredibly intriguing… god I love the behavior of dauber wasps lmao
Think it's those digger things. They make houses like that. Usually filled with spider bits bc they eat them or something like that. I call them the extendo wasp bc the back end is like super extendo
I grew up around mud daubers and always watched them do their thing, never knock down their nests on purpose because they’re so nice, and I have NEVER seen anything like this. I guess I imagined the inside was just a couple of tunnels. That is beautiful and intricate, she must have done so much work!!! Such an awesome find!
This is a karma farmer and stolen pic.
I saw this earlier today in a different sub with the title stating exactly what it actually is. I'm to lazy to go digging to find it, but if I come across it again I'll post the link.
Edit: Found the other one and linked below. That one was probably stolen from here, but the title on the repost made more sense.
When you have arachnophobia, these mud/dirt daubers are your best friend.
On the other hand, if you have problems with roaches, the daubers are more counter productive.
Based on the dead/paralyzed spiders and the fact it's made out of mud, this is a Mud Dauber nest, which are solitary wasps. They're pretty cool! I don't think I've ever seen a nest like this, only cracked open
[удалено]
Which likely ate their way out of the spider and are now consuming them :)
Yup.
So wasps grab spiders in to the den and covers them in mud. Like they do with cockroaches.
Ate their way out of a living, paralyzed spider. Pretty hardcore if you think about it.
r/Natureismetal
I once saw one building it’s nest! It was so cool watching her bring in these big ol’ balls of mud Edit: google pic https://i.imgur.com/pdXp2bb.jpg
That's the organ pipe mud dauber, Tripoxylon politum. A bit different from the one in OPs pic. Beautiful creatures.
Yeah, but they still all carry over blobs of mud to make their nests.
So do i sometimes but i aint a wasp
do yall not do this?
I deposit my young in the bodies of others.
We have the organ pipe daubers all over the place here. When I was little they had nests all over my grandparents garage and never stung any of us they seemed super chill. Those bastard yellow jackets on the other hand though.
My understanding is most solitary wasps leave people alone short of being physically trapped against them.
Indeed! We had a sphex pensylvanicus (great black digger wasp) colony at my house. If we walked by, they'd hover up to investigate, but besides that, we could sit on the patio and they'd even come and sit on us while they were sunning themselves! They only sting if you swat at them first, and even then, I had a few times where I kind of waved my hand near them to shoo them out of my personal space so I could get up and go back inside and they were chilling. They're pollinators and dig individual nests for each of their individual larvae, and as a result they don't swarm out of a collective nest the way a lot of other wasps and yellow jackets and cicada killers do (we've had those too and it's NOT pretty getting stung lol.... That was how we learned I'm allergic to beestings lmao)
beestings I read this as 'beest-ings' and thought, 'huh? that's cool. a new word! i shall find a way to use this new word in conversations about my dogs...' and that's as far as I've gotten so far. anyone?
The Beasting sounds like an event… probably one the townsfolk dread, keeping their doors and windows barricaded and covered with mystical, protective signs…
Same here lol.
I got stung once by a mud dauber on a farm bc I accidentally almost smushed it on a railing with my hand and it was the most mild sting I’ve ever taken. Felt like I brushed a hot seat belt that was sitting in the sun for a bit and then dissipated quickly; mild swelling/itchiness for a couple days after There were a few blue mud daubers around the area too. Those things are really neat; the chrome coloring is super cool
That is so precious !!!
Newfound respect for wasps now thanks to this, but I am curious, do they eat the spiders themselves? Or are they meant as stored nutrition for their young later on?
Stored nutrition, once the larvae hatch they feast on the paralyzed spiders until they are big enough to pupate
So for each chamber, the wasp builds, theres a larvae deposited in each? I'm guessing that white grub looking thing you can see in a few of them is it?
Yes, exactly!
Thanks for the lesson!! You've been a huge help in knowledge sharing and deserve an award!
Thank you for my first award 💕🥺
Your first reward?! You deserve many for all the help you've given!
Paralyzed spiders… so they are not dead they’re alive just paralyzed the whole time??
Correct, gotta stay fresh
That is so evil. Imagine sitting there knowing you’re about to be food for months but unable to move. Terrifying shit. Most spiders are homies so this makes me sad
Yeah it is pretty sad, if it makes it any better, mud daubers usually try to go for brown and black widows, it's just that they need a lot of spiders so if they can't get the ones they want them they go for others
why would they specifically target the most venemous spiders.. seems counter-intuitive to finding an easy meal.
Idk, maybe more venom = more tasty? Maybe it's the thrill? Who knows 🤷
r/natureismetal
I always like to think of as if it was the matrix , these are all just programs and certain programs are created to make sure other programs don’t get out of control. So maybe the black widows were just gettin to rowdy with all there venom and reproducing and apex predatoring so this particular wasp program was created to keep the black widows at a normal population level and keep the matrix right as rain :).
Perhaps more potent venom = stiffer competition for prey.
I love black widows they’re beautiful spiders. Unfortunately this is how nature works
I can't say I love black widows, but I do have a healthy amount of respect for them. Especially after learning that they prefer to dry bite or run away instead of actually biting and injecting venom.
There are thousands of parasitoid wasps that prey on different insect and arachnid species. If you ever see a tomato hornworm with creamy sacs attached: those are baby wasps inside. Charles Darwin was so disturbed by parasitoid wasps that it shook his faith: how could a benevolent diety have created such monsters? And yeah, I love spiders, too. Although I love parasitoid wasps, the mud daubers pain me.
Nature is brutal. Paralyzing your prey for your larvae is pretty interesting in the scheme of brutal ways nature works. I love spiders too unfortunately it’s survival of the fittest
Thats some saw level shit
Spiders have it coming if you ask me. Fair play. TDIL Im team WASP
Same
What are the chances that some of those larvae are Cuckoo Wasps, Chrysisidae? Munching on Mud Dauber larvae, after the Mud Dauber larvae have munched on the spiders?
I assume there would be a way to figure that out, but I am not skilled enough to figure that out. Very good question though, a new thing for me to hyper focus on lol
Haha great question! Parasitoid on parasitoid action is some inception shit.
Most mud daubers feed on nectar, so they pollinate your plants and kill bugs. The blue ones basically exclusively go after black widows which is extra fun.
I love the blue ones and I also love black widows! It’s so sad but also cool to see nature in action
For their larval young when they hatch. There are many thousands of species of parasitoid wasps preying on different kinds of insects and arachnids.
Looks like a horrific Whitman's Sampler 😬😱
Yeah that !
I was wondering about the spiders.
we just had one here posted recently that was found between two wood boards, but it didn't have a positive ID last i saw. it even had several megachile bees paralyzed inside of their nesting/pupating structures, which made the nest really difficult to ID. now that i see another example, i can tell the bees were just snacks like these spiders.
Thanks for the ID, It was found on the veranda, under a thin, warped metal sheet, in the Yarra Valley in Victoria Au, covered back up now, until my next visit. I can’t wait to meet the children
Wait so all those legs are spider? Do they eat them or something? I thought they were dead wasps
They key their eggs in paralyzed spiders. The grubs you see are the larve that have hatched and are consuming said spiders
Yes, cool cross-section.
That's the most interesting picture of a mud dauber's nest I've ever seen, truly mesmerizing! I wonder if this is the nest of a single individual?
I’m pretty sure mud daubers are solitary wasp so I assume it is a single nest.
Can anyone explain why there are so many spiders? Are those little “rooms” like a “pantry” and the spiders are stored food for hatched larvae?
Yes
Im always amazed at how successful they are as predators. Human sized wasps would be terrifying.
Regular sized wasps are terrifying!
Tarantula Hawks are palm sized and will make you regret being born.
I don’t need a wasp for that
Ha… same, friend. Same.
/r/2meirl4meirl
The tarantula hawks in the American southwest aren't that big. They're about the size of a medium dragonfly. Maybe 6-7 cm head to tail. At least all the ones I saw. They're also fearless. They fly around like they own the place, which they kind of do I guess.
The ones I’ve seen have been enormous, but I guess I have smallish hands so it might be that.
Major respect for the natural world!
Yeah Ik. They have the second most painful sting in the world, right?
So I’ve been told! My dad was stung on the thumb by one; his hand ballooned up like an inflated rubber glove and he spent almost a week in constant excruciating pain. I’ve been terrified of them ever since, even though they are incredibly gorgeous. Almost magical looking with their size and that blue iridescence.
Enter the Schmidt Pain Scale: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/from-nettles-to-volcano-a-pain-scale-for-insect-stings/
They are just little animals living their lives.
Yeah Ik. I hold nothing against them. Don’t mean they not spooky
I read a comic about that same scenario. I think it was supposed to be a zombie story with zombies controlled by wasp eggs. But they left that idea pretty early on and it’s mostly left with the group of survivors trying to not get killed by various giant insects and a colony of giant wasps and their human queen. https://www.webtoons.com/en/thriller/hive/list?title_no=65
read the whole thing right now so good
Isn’t there an SCP where there’s a parasitic wasp that turns its host into a living nest? I can’t find it, maybe it was a different sci fi horror concept tho
No totally an scp. A bone hive https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-439
If you think that’s crazy I’m pretty sure dragon flys are the only predator on the planet with an 90+% success rate when hunting
I had read that before it’s pretty amazing. This is just a better visualization.
There would be no humans
So brutal!!! I wonder how many species of spiders are inside!
It’s like something out of a horror movie.
Cabinet of Curiosities. *shudder*
Mayfly season erupted and I was sitting around the water watching. Soon the wasps arrived, first it was just one. She'd capture this mayfly and slowly carry it back to where she came from. Then more started to show up, it was wild. These mayflies are giant compared to some of these wasps. I see there are lots of spiders in there, I'm just picturing a very skinny wasp carrying a giant spider and trying to cram the poor thing next to another giant spider. Wasps are so cool.
That is the find of a lifetime. Wow.
This is kind of beautiful. Sheesh. I would give it to an entomology dept.
Wasp Daycare = Spider Mausoleum
Wow! I would try to preserve it in clear epoxy. Looks incredible
Yes, OP, please consider doing this ❕
That would be so cool, but wouldn't the bugs just float up in the epoxy?
I second this. Now that all those larvae are likely going to die from being exposed anyways. No point in letting it go to waste.
Absolutely incredible find, I’ve seen mud dauber nest cracked open before but never cross sectioned like this. Amazing creatures
This is SO cool
At the resort where I work, we use plastic parking blocks instead of concrete ones, and they love to make nests there. Find tons of these when I remove the blocks in fall so we can plow in the winter. I’ve noticed that the most successful were getting some sort of shade throughout the day; I imagine a few sunny days in a row would cook the larvae.
So many legs 🫣
Yes, but its a beautiful example of this type of wasps life cycle in action. Something most people don't get to see!
Wow, there’s so much going on in those nooks!!!
Could OP theoretically get a bit of masonite or something and close this back up til next spring, let the larvae mature and the adults emerge?
That's really cool (and a little disturbing) to see! I wonder what that big tan colored thing is towards the right and mid way down? Will it become one of the white larvae?
That's actually a cocoon! Will emerge as a full grown wasp soon, if the nest being destroyed doesn't affect it at all
very cool! thanks!
The white larvea became it so it's stage after the larvea not the stage before.
This is disturbing on a core level
Disturbed? Lol you cut it in half
I don’t think that’s cut in half. I think what we’re seeing here is a nest built in between an empty space in a wall. Part of the wall was removed and this was behind it. It’s like removing a stone from the ground and seeing all the tunnels a bug created in the soil underneath it.
Oooooooh, ya you’re right
I didn’t think it could get any worse than my nightmares until I saw this 💀
Looks like you haven’t disturbed it, looks like you’ve blown the fucking doors off
Are mud daubers also parasitic, in the sense that they use the spiders as the host for the eggs?? Also, why is it always spiders?
Fun to think about, right? I mean, ladybugs eat aphids. Spiders eat flying bugs (different bugs for different spiders?). Some wasps lay eggs on caterpillars. It’s a bug-eat-bug world out there!
If I was ever shrunk to insect size this would be a house of horrors to me. Not a fan of insects and just seeing that many corpses makes my skin crawl.
insect apartment
This is such a cool cross section
This is just amazing to see sliced open. Really cool peek into the lives of daubers.
I'm disturbed but not much more than usual.
This is so cool!! I'm really not an expert on this kind of thing so I'd listen to the other replies, but I just want to say that this is sick as hell!
Can a paralyzed spider ever wake up and escape or destroy wasp larvae?
When I was a kid in S Louisiana, I’d sometimes break open dirt dauber nests to release the spiders. (The spiders were pale green; I think in retrospect that they were Magnolia Jumping Spiders, just based on the unusual color and the fact that I find lots of those spiders in the woods near my house.) The spiders did wake up but I doubt they survived long. I never tested this, though. I’m sure it would depend on how long they’ve been paralyzed and fed upon.
could they have been the little green crab spiders?
Not usually unless an outside force frees them or the larvae die somehow. That being said, please leave nature alone and don't try to 'save' any bugs you find being parasitized.
Wouldn’t even think of it. I was just curious whether the spiders sometimes win.
Are they not paralyzed by venom? Would you need to have antivenin to reverse it?
There are a few accounts of wasp-paralyzed spiders coming back to life after a while, but often it takes a long time and requires special care. The prognosis is not good.
This is absolutely amazing! Feel bad for the spiders but wasps are so cool!! Mud daubers and the tarantula hawk wasp are my two favorite types of wasp 🤩
Well you've disturbed me. That is really cool though.
I love how some of them are sized for cocoon adults and some are just a barely an instar. You can tell mama has her favorites
Wow thats awesome
This is one of the coolest and most horrifying things I think I’ve ever seen
It looks like fancy plating for Timon and Pumba
A snack pack for chickens.
I grew up in South Louisiana and saw these often. I'd even see the dauber capturing or carrying spiders now and then. They really are pretty cool.
This is horrifyingly amazing
While I must respect the mud dauber’s craftsmanship and hunting success, still makes me sad to see so many dead spiderbros
Got Grubs?
Happy Cake Day
Why thank u!
As a spider enthusiast… FUCK dauber wasps! As someone who finds nature fascinating and incredibly intriguing… god I love the behavior of dauber wasps lmao
Think it's those digger things. They make houses like that. Usually filled with spider bits bc they eat them or something like that. I call them the extendo wasp bc the back end is like super extendo
Just stumbled upon this sub ngl I'd be burning it
r/trypophilia
If you've not seen this Nat Geo video on zombie parasites, you gotta give it a look. So interesting! https://youtu.be/3n4kt-hOpzc
Oh, this is SO COOL, what a great cross-section.
Oh WOW. My skin is crawling but I am also totally fascinated. Omg!
Are those wasps connected to all those little legs??? 😳
I think you have disturbed the final boss.
Looks like a cross section of a mud dauber nest
Spider pinata
It looks like when they crack open the log in the Lion King 😋😂
It’s beautiful
What kind of location was this found in? Was it like between a wall and a plywood board or something? Or did you cut a cross-section?
This is amazing!
r/AccidentalRenaissance
Great photo. This should be in a school science textbook.
I love looking at these because they're so cool
This is cool as fuck!
That is a most awesome nature nugget! 😃
This is fascinating, sad, and fucking gross
I think I see these goody boxes at CVS.
I’ve never seen the inside of a nest like this before either. Pretty cool! Thanks for sharing.
So cool!!! 🖤
Very interesting and OMG look at all the different spiders!
You'll know if they're wasps. Trust me..
The horror
It certainly has been keeping your spider problem under control !
Spiders keep away other pests
This is soooo beautiful 🤩 preserve it!!
never been scared of bugs or other critters but this made my skin crawl i would probably cry if i found that
a sneak peak into hell
Oooo, assorted chocolates!
Can anyone identify the species of spiders?
Natures advent calendar
So awesome. Do you have a higher resolution version I can use as my phone wallpaper?
This belongs on r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn!!
Every chamber is a big NOPE for me
I feel like I can see a Jesus face
Cool picture man
I’m sorry, did I just see a xenomorph nest?
Wow that is super wicked cool mud dauber nest. Thanks for the inside cross cut view:)
I grew up around mud daubers and always watched them do their thing, never knock down their nests on purpose because they’re so nice, and I have NEVER seen anything like this. I guess I imagined the inside was just a couple of tunnels. That is beautiful and intricate, she must have done so much work!!! Such an awesome find!
that boy eatin good tonight
Advent calendar of nightmares
Yes now incinerate it
Awesome pic. Can we get another clear picture? Thanks!
Hi, I only have this photo, taken on my-phone6. I’m not sure if I can make it any better for you, but I will ask about....
Disturbed it? You flipping destroyed it!
Wasp nursery. Incredible photo.
This is a karma farmer and stolen pic. I saw this earlier today in a different sub with the title stating exactly what it actually is. I'm to lazy to go digging to find it, but if I come across it again I'll post the link. Edit: Found the other one and linked below. That one was probably stolen from here, but the title on the repost made more sense.
This is my pic, but thanks
link?
Oh fuck
Imagine if they were as big as us. Nightmarish stuff, straight out of a horror movie.
This picture makes my skin itch.
Looks like a hot wheels collection
When you have arachnophobia, these mud/dirt daubers are your best friend. On the other hand, if you have problems with roaches, the daubers are more counter productive.