SPIDERS AND THEIR RELATIVES 95 



When the eggs hatched, the wasp babies would 

 feed on the still living tarantula until they had 

 grown large enough to spin cocoons for them- 

 selves. The wasp mother had no refrigerator, 

 and this was the way she arranged for her children 

 to have all the fresh meat they needed. 



I wish that Santiago had let the tarantula 

 hawk live. I should have been interested in 

 seeing her drag the heavy tarantula to her nest 

 and pack it away there as preserved meat. I have 

 seen wasps farther north do the same thing with 

 spiders and caterpillars, but never any so large or 

 so easily studied. 



People have puzzled a great deal over the 

 instinct that leads young wasps, freshly hatched 

 from their cocoons, to hunt always for the same 

 kind of animal on which to stow away their 

 eggs. They never see their own mother to learn 

 from her, nor do they have any older wasp to 

 watch, but the young tarantula hawk never 

 makes a mistake. She always selects a tarantula 

 on which to lay her eggs, just as the northern 

 wasp will always find the same kind of spider or 

 caterpillar on which she has grown up, for her 

 own children to eat. 



The answer is probably this: The tarantula 

 hawk has been brought up on- tarantula. As a 

 youngster she never ate any other food, so that the 

 smell of nothing else attracts her. Flying through 

 the jungle, she sniffs tarantula odor and she 



