Aussie puzzled by bizarre backyard find that's rarely seen: 'I think one is alive'
An expert revealed the troubled arachnids to be pink flower spiders – but the camouflaging critters are 'rarely seen'.
An Aussie was puzzled this week after she discovered what appeared to be a strange nest sitting on her backyard lounge.
The woman said she wandered outside on Monday to find the wasp-shaped figure “stuck and open” on her outdoor furniture with numerous small spiders piled inside, three of which had tumbled out of the muddy structure and onto the woven fabric.
“I think one [is] alive [and] the rest look to be dead,” she posted online, asking members of a Facebook group dedicated to Aussie arachnids to help explain what exactly she had snapped images of.
The majority of experts said the insects appeared to be orb-weavers that had fallen victim to a female mud dauber wasp, which are commonly seen in Sydney and Melbourne and known to paralyse spiders before dragging them back to their “nursery chamber”.
Others urged the woman not to attempt to rescue the remaining survivor — a very colourful creature known as a “pink flower spider”, Dr Sam Robinson from the University of Queensland told Yahoo News on Wednesday.
Although they are common around the country, the spiders “are often so well camouflaged that the casual observer rarely sees them”, according to the Australian Museum.
Wasps hunt, seal off spiders in mud nests
Many types of wasps hunt spiders in Australia, Dr Robinson explained. After paralysing them with their stingers, the insects place the spiders in already-prepared nests.
“These are often made of mud, and the wasps that build their nests out of mud are commonly called mud daubers or potter wasps,” he said.
“The wasp then lays an egg within the nest and seals it off. The egg hatches into a larva which feeds on the paralysed spiders, then pupates and later emerges from the nest as an adult wasp.” What the woman found is the remnants of a broken nest.
The sight is something like a scene out of the iconic sci-fi movie Alien, Owen Seeman, collection manager of arachnology for Queensland Museum, told Yahoo. “That’s art mimicking nature,” he said.
Some types of wasps 'great to have in your garden'
Some types of potter wasps specialise in hunting caterpillars rather than spiders to feed their larvae, Dr Robinson added.
“Breaking open a mud nest/pot can reveal paralysed caterpillars. These wasps in particular can be great to have in your garden as they can really keep caterpillar pest numbers down and protect the plants,” he said.
If any curious Aussies want to see a broken wasp nest with their own eyes, it wouldn’t take them long, the expert told Yahoo.
“If one takes the time to look, one will find that this is indeed a very common sight across most of Australia, particularly at this time of year when wasps and their prey are most active,” he said.
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