The Tarantula Hawk is one of the most common wasps in Texas. Its sting been rated as the worst in the insect world. Fortunately they are usually not aggressive toward humans but, rather, toward their prey: tarantulas. The female tarantula hawk wasp stings a tarantula between the legs, paralyzes it, then drags the prey to a specially prepared burrow, where a single egg is laid on the spider's abdomen, and the burrow entrance is covered up. When the wasp larva hatches, it creates a small hole in the spider's abdomen, then enters and feeds voraciously, avoiding vital organs for as long as possible to keep the spider alive. The paralyzed spider literally gets devoured alive from the inside. After several weeks, the larva pupates. Finally, the wasp becomes an adult and emerges from the spidaraner's abdomen to continue the life cycle. Incidentally, tarantula hawks are nectarivorous, which means that they can get drunk. The consumption of fermented fruit sometimes intoxicates them to the point that flight becomes difficult.

I got stung by one of those right over my kidney when I was about 14 years old while climbing over a fence. Felt like liquid lava, knocked me out cold, and it made me jizz my shorts. Strangely enough it didn't cause a whole bunch of swelling or hurt for days the way a regular wasp or bee sting does. I felt something get on me right as I was at the top of the fence and swatted at it and squished it right around the moment it stung me. I think had I not swatted at it I would not have gotten stung.

They are BIG as well. I see them at my deer lease in the early season and stomp them when I get a chance.

Answers some questions I had here.

Lmao…Sounds like the highs and lows from a practice wife.

I've been tempted to catch one and using it to sting my hand to see if I can handle it but I've never been able to find one when I'm in the mood for something like that. There's a guy on YouTube that zaps himself with every bug you can think of and he said that bullet ants hurt the worst and it's a hurt that lasts for hours.

Saw one kill a big grass spider twice its size and drag it up the shop wall 8'. In the bug world there very strong.

this tells me even more.

I'm the kid that used to wire lantern batteries in series until the voltage was high enough to shock you through bare skin and then I would keep adding batteries to see how much of it I could handle before giving up. I even won a regional state science fair project based on that and got to shock a whole lot of my classmates who volunteered.

Have you ever tried whooping somebody that hurts themselves for fun sometimes? It ain't exactly easy and it's paid dividends in my life.

You need more beer, courage in a can.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. We were at Sulphur Springs fishing camp on the Colorado River one summer and while sitting under a shade with Dad, Uncles, and cousins, we watched a spider hawk follow a large spider into a hole. Of course, we all wanted to see what was going to happen next. After a few minutes, nothing came out so we lost interest. About 20 min later the spider came out dragging the wasp. Wasn't quite expecting that.

They surely do hurt. Only thing that might be worse in Texas is an asp. I've been stung by other types of wasps and a couple of different scorpions that were not as bad. I would say it is basically a toss-up between the time I sat on an asp and the time I got stung on the inner thigh by a tarantula hawk.

It'd make a good movie for Svenghoulie on Saturday night.

They are also one of the best pollinators of Milkweed. Here is one on a variety of Antelope Horn milkweed.