Previously a poster had mentioned cicada killers. Coincidently my back
yard became the playground of a tarantula hawk. This is a rather large
wasp that successfully drags a tarantula out of their burrow, stings it,
and turns it into a paralyzed buffet for its own offspring.

It started last weekend when I saw an immobile tarantula on my deck
where I had just walked a few minutes before. That seemed a bit curious
but I just scooped him up and deposited him into a flowerbed. The
tarantula was not stiff and was not obviously dead.

Later that evening I was hanging out in the pool and saw a large
wasp-looking insect cruising about on the ground in the dim light. I
followed it around the edge of half the pool and then it disappeared
into the yard.

A few minutes later I heard the noise of large insect wings flapping
real close to my head and I splashed a bit of water, ducked, then
resurfaced. The insect was still near and I splashed some more, spilling
most of my gin and tonic in the process :-(

The bug was knocked into the pool and turned out to be a large wasp. It
was caught in the currents and it soon became obvious that it would be
in the skimmer basket in short order. For some reason I took mercy on it
and scooped it out and tossed it into the yard.

Later that night I saw the reference here about the cicada killer and
realized that my visitor was probably a tarantula hawk. The next morning
it was buzzing around the deck and I feared for my little Boston Terrier
as I had read its sting could make a human ache for over an hour. My
pioneer justice was meted out by the wasp and hornet spray but to no
avail..........it lived!

Tonight I looked out the window and saw the bugger hauling another
tarantula across the deck. I then saw the knothole it was using as the
entrance to its burrow. Too bad the tarantula was about 4 times too big
to go through it.

I then went for the latest in tech weapons............the electronic fly
swatter. This is a taser for flying insects, 9 volts in and zillion
volts out. It would make a fly pop with a puff of smoke and a spark. I
also didn't want to spray more death chemicals around.

The wasp was quite resilient and took numerous shocks. All the while its
stinger was groping for vengeance. I soon realized the shocks were
inadequate and I zapped it directly with chemical spray that ended its
agony quickly.

It was a freakish monster of a wasp that seemed average in size for its
species. Apparently the tarantula owed it some money and after refusing
to pay the wasp killed it as an example to others. RIP-city

p.s. the wasp is somewhat aggressive toward humans and was always
folowing the wrong path so I needed to zap it