{"id":1577,"date":"2016-01-11T14:58:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T01:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders_as_wasp_incubators\/"},"modified":"2016-01-11T14:58:57","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T01:58:57","slug":"spiders-as-wasp-incubators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/","title":{"rendered":"spiders as wasp incubators"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago there was a story in the Herald<\/em><\/a> about an Australian huntsman spider that had been found by NZ's border security workers at Auckland airport. With a legspan of up to 15cm<\/a> these are not small creatures! And yes, we do have them in NZ as well<\/a>, but they're a different genus: NZ readers may know them as the Avondale spider. 'Our' version was most famously used – and viewed – in the film Arachnophobia<\/em>. <\/p>\n

I was reminded of that story when my Facebook feed brought up an article, complete with video<\/a>, about how the Australian spiders are used by parasitic wasps as incubators for their babies. (A photo in the linked article<\/a> will give you a good idea of just how big both wasps and spiders are.) Once a spider's been paralysed and dragged back to the wasp's nest, its stuffed into the cavity and a single egg is laid in its body. Once hatched, the growing wasp larva eats its paralysed host, avoiding any vital organs until the last minute (after all, no self-respecting larva would want to dine on rotting spider if that were avoidable!).<\/p>\n

Many people would probably find this quite gruesome, but it is simply the wasp's natural behaviour, and something that Darwin himself commented on in a letter to Asa Gray<\/a> in explaining his thoughts on evolution and religion (it's a most interesting letter to read):<\/p>\n

\n

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ickily fascinating.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago there was a story in the Herald about an Australian huntsman spider that had been found by NZ's border security workers at Auckland airport. With a legspan of up to 15cm these are not small creatures! And yes, we do have them in NZ as well, but they're a different genus: NZ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,37,23],"tags":[19,38,24],"yoast_head":"\nspiders as wasp incubators : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"spiders as wasp incubators : BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few days ago there was a story in the Herald about an Australian huntsman spider that had been found by NZ's border security workers at Auckland airport. With a legspan of up to 15cm these are not small creatures! And yes, we do have them in NZ as well, but they're a different genus: NZ […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-11T01:58:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alison\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AcampbelTeacher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alison\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/\",\"name\":\"spiders as wasp incubators : BioBlog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-11T01:58:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-11T01:58:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#\/schema\/person\/9676347d9dce672ed12b14407e623cea\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"spiders as wasp incubators\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/\",\"name\":\"BioBlog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#\/schema\/person\/9676347d9dce672ed12b14407e623cea\",\"name\":\"Alison\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AcampbelTeacher\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/author\/acampbel\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"spiders as wasp incubators : BioBlog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"spiders as wasp incubators : BioBlog","og_description":"A few days ago there was a story in the Herald about an Australian huntsman spider that had been found by NZ's border security workers at Auckland airport. With a legspan of up to 15cm these are not small creatures! And yes, we do have them in NZ as well, but they're a different genus: NZ […]","og_url":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/","og_site_name":"BioBlog","article_published_time":"2016-01-11T01:58:57+00:00","author":"Alison","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AcampbelTeacher","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Alison","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/","url":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/","name":"spiders as wasp incubators : BioBlog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-01-11T01:58:57+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-11T01:58:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#\/schema\/person\/9676347d9dce672ed12b14407e623cea"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-NZ","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2016\/01\/spiders-as-wasp-incubators\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"spiders as wasp incubators"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/","name":"BioBlog","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-NZ"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/#\/schema\/person\/9676347d9dce672ed12b14407e623cea","name":"Alison","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/AcampbelTeacher"],"url":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/author\/acampbel\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}