MARVELS OF METAMORPHOSIS 



515 



I found that verv 



little was known con- 

 cerning the maker of 



the curious cocoons. 



More than one inves- 

 tigator believed it to 



be the cocoon of Pep- 

 sis, popularly known 



as the "tarantula 



hawk," but I could 



not see how a two- 



mchPepsis wasp could 



be packed away in a 



cocoon that averaged 



only a little over an 



inch in length. It 



seemed to me that the 



maker of the curious 



cocoon must be a 



smaller species of 



hunting wasp. 



This proved to be 



true. Further re- 

 search and inquiry 



revealed a puzzling 



situation. Although 



practically nothing 



was known about the 



wasp's life history, 



and the male had 



never been found and 



described, the adult 



female had been on 



entomological records 



for many years. But 

 she had been variously 



known as Pom pi his 

 plana t us, Parapom- 

 pilns planatus, Plani- 

 ceps planatus , and 

 Psammochares pla- 

 natus. 



Afterwards, Dr. 

 Kenneth A. Salman, 

 of Berkeley, an entomologist of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, and 

 P. H. Timberlake, of the University of Cali- 

 fornia Citrus Experiment Station at River- 

 side, explained that these changes were due 

 to certain reclassifications, and that the 

 generally accepted title was Pcdinaspis 

 planatus (Fox), of the family Psammo- 

 charidae. 



So Danny and I decided to call her 

 "Psammy"! 



Apparently no one had ever actually wit- 

 nessed Psammy 's crime, but a good guess 

 could be made about certain angles of it. 



"PSAMMY JUNIOR STARTS EATING AS SOON AS THE EGG 

 CHANGES TO A LARVA 



In a partial coma, the spider may live for six months or more, serving 

 as a nourishing free lunch for its unwelcome guest (page 816). After sev- 

 eral days, the egg (top) turns into a wriggling larva which at once begins 

 feasting on the spider's fat abdomen (lower picture). 



Considering the methods used by other 

 hunting wasps in attacking other species 

 of spiders, it was safe to assume that 

 Psammy had stung the spider into a help- 

 less paralysis and laid her egg on its body. 

 When the egg hatched, the larva had feasted 

 upon the meat so marvelously provided and 

 preserved, and eventually spun its cocoon 

 and gone into hiding right there in the 

 murder room. 



But no one seemed to know how, when, 

 or where the mother wasp attacked the 

 spider. Did she enter the nest to get at the 

 spider, or did she attack it outside and 



