Tarantula hawk
A big black desert wasp with orange wings that hunts tarantulas, delivers one of the most painful stings on Earth, and almost never bothers people.
Tarantula hawk at a glance
Pepsis tuh-RAN-chuh-luh hawk; Pepsis is PEP-siss
- Type
- Invertebrate · wasp
- Diet
- Other
- Size
- Up to about 2 inches long, one of the largest wasps in North America, roughly the length of your thumb.
- Lifespan
- The adult lives a few months through the warm season.
- Conservation
- Not formally assessed by IUCN; common in the desert Southwest
Eats flower nectar (adults), one paralyzed tarantula (each larva)
The adult drinks flower nectar and is mostly a peaceful pollinator. The female hunts a tarantula only to feed her young. She stings and paralyzes the spider, drags it to a burrow, and lays a single egg on it so the hatching larva has fresh food.
Should you worry?
It has one of the most painful stings of any insect, but it is not aggressive and will not chase or attack you. It stings only if grabbed or stepped on. Give it room, don't touch it, and it will leave you alone. The sting hurts intensely but fades in a few minutes and is not dangerous to a healthy person.
At Joshua Tree, the biggest wasp you will ever see works the desert flowers as calmly as a bee, two inches of glossy black with wings the color of a warning sign. For most of its life the tarantula hawk is a peaceful thing, a pollinator drinking nectar in the sun. The orange wings are the tell. They announce, to anything thinking of taking a bite, that this insect carries one of the worst stings on the planet.
It earns the reputation in a duel most people never witness. A female hunting for her young goes looking for a tarantula, a spider far larger than herself, and picks a fight with it on purpose. She dodges the fangs, drives in a single sting, and the venom does not kill the spider but freezes it, leaving it alive and aware and completely unable to move. Then she drags the paralyzed tarantula across the ground to a burrow, lays one egg on its body, and seals it in. When the grub hatches it eats the living spider slowly, saving the vital organs for last so its food stays fresh for weeks.
The sting that does all this is rated among the two most painful of any insect on Earth, so overwhelming that the standard advice is to simply lie down and let yourself scream until it passes, which it does in a few minutes. But here is the part worth teaching a kid at the trailhead: it almost never happens to people. The venom is built for spiders, not for you, and the wasp will not chase, will not attack, and stings a human only if grabbed or stepped on. Give it the few feet it wants and the most fearsome sting in the desert simply flies off to the next flower.
Did you know?
- Its sting is rated one of the two most painful of any insect on Earth, so intense that the advice is simply to lie down and scream until it passes, which takes only a few minutes.
- For all that, it almost never stings people. The venom is meant for spiders, and the wasp only stings a human who grabs or traps it.
- The female hunts tarantulas far bigger than herself, paralyzes one with a single sting, and buries it alive as fresh food for her one growing grub, which eats the spider from the inside over weeks.
Common questions
Is a tarantula hawk dangerous to people?
Its sting is one of the most painful of any insect, but the wasp is not aggressive and won't chase you. It only stings if you grab or step on it. The pain is severe but fades in a few minutes and is not dangerous to a healthy person.
What does a tarantula hawk do to a tarantula?
The female stings and paralyzes the spider, which stays alive but cannot move. She drags it into a burrow and lays one egg on it, and when the grub hatches it eats the still-living spider as its only food.
What should I do if I see one?
Watch it and leave it alone. Most of the time it's just drinking nectar from desert flowers. Don't try to touch or catch it, and it will go about its business without bothering you.