Behavior
The female tarantula hawk captures, stings, and paralyzes the spider, then either drags her prey back into her own burrow or transports it to a specially prepared nest, where a single egg is laid on the spider’s abdomen, and the entrance is covered. 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. After several weeks, the larva pupates. Finally, the wasp becomes an adult, and emerges from the spider's abdomen to continue the life cycle. Tarantula wasps are also nectarivorous. The consumption of fermented fruit sometimes intoxicates them to the point that flight becomes difficult. While the wasps tend to be most active in daytime summer months, they tend to avoid the very highest temperatures. The male tarantula hawk does not hunt; instead, it feeds off the flowers of milkweeds, western soapberry trees, or mesquite trees (females feed on these same plants, as well). The male tarantula hawk has a behavior called hill-topping, where he sits atop tall plants and watches for passing females ready to reproduce.
Read more about this topic: Tarantula Hawk
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“Anytime we react to behavior in our children that we dislike in ourselves, we need to proceed with extreme caution. The dynamics of everyday family life also have a way of repeating themselves.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“The inability to control our children’s behavior feels the same as not being able to control it in ourselves. And the fact is that primitive behavior in children does unleash primitive behavior in mothers. That’s what frightens mothers most. For young children, even when out of control, do not have the power to destroy their mothers, but mothers who are out of control feel that they may destroy their children.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)