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Baja Bug

cvchandler - 2-20-2009 at 07:17 PM

I was hoping someone might like to identify this creature. Any information about it would be appreciated as well. Are they very common? I noticed it while walking near Cabo Pulmo today. It seemed very tame allowing me to position my lens about 100 mm away. It was happily gorging on pollen and sugar. It looks to be a very good pollenator.
It is large, about 50 mm length.

http://www.charleschandlerphotography.com/galbajabugs.html

Bug

tehag - 2-20-2009 at 07:30 PM

Tarantula hawk - Hemipepsis spp.

Paralyzes a tarantula and lays eggs on it in a burrow. When the eggs hatch, the larva eat the comatose tarantula. I hear that the sting is attention getting.

Osprey - 2-20-2009 at 07:31 PM

That's a tarantula hawk. And that's his favorite pollen source, small blossoms on plants near the beach. That's the girl who fights with the big spiders and if and when she is successful in overcoming a big spider she does not kill it, she keeps it anesthitized while she plants her eggs inside it. She drags it to a pre made hole/nest where the eggs hatch and eat the dying host. She has some venom for that and if it gets you, you will feel it, you will need my under the kitchen sink miracle, Guaco. Mexicans mix up the names of venomous flying things like bitaches, avispas, hornetas and more.

shari - 2-20-2009 at 07:53 PM

here they call it Matavenado...deer killer and everyone is terrified of them...they also are not very great flyers...they bump into you and things but you can hear them coming from a long way away....big buzz.

Tarantula Hawk

cvchandler - 2-20-2009 at 08:50 PM

Thanks to all of you. It's a good thing I didn't know what it was when I was filming it!
It flew back to me several times. It does seem a clumsy flyer. It was great learning about it's life cycle.

David K - 2-21-2009 at 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by shari
here they call it Matavenado...deer killer and everyone is terrified of them...they also are not very great flyers...they bump into you and things but you can hear them coming from a long way away....big buzz.

Shari... are you sure???

There are now three different bugs being called 'deer killers' on Nomad! Folks, they are all different types of creatures.

1) Wind scorpion/ wind spider/ camel spider: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Sol...

2) Potato Bug: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/23/Jerusale...

3) Trantula Hawk: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/17/DSC05816...

ALL THREE live in Baja...

The Wind Scorpion (#1) is what I have known to be called 'Deer Killers' and I saw them in the opening of El Cajon Canyon/ Valle Chico, in 2004. Avoid!

#2 is the harmless Potato Bug... smells like a potato, ugly, but not a danger... lives in moist soil... here in San Diego. Played with them as kids.

#3 is the Tarantula Hawk, a type of wasp... well described above... saw one at Nuevo Mazatlan in 2006. Avoid!

Here's 2 photos I took in Aug. 2006:

[Edited on 2-21-2009 by David K]

shari - 2-21-2009 at 07:47 AM

Yes...the third guy is what is referred to by locals as Matavenado and also I have heard it called a Matavivora...snake killer too...people here dont have those fancy ID books and just call em what their parents called em...so I was just passing on names that I have heard here...whatever it is, it's got some wicked venom.

longlegsinlapaz - 2-21-2009 at 10:20 AM

My friends in La Paz call the thing with the orange wings Matavenado as well :yes:

....so that's not just a local name to Asuncion. And Shari's right, they make a really loud noise!

BajaBruno - 2-21-2009 at 11:28 AM

Very nice photography, by the way, Charles. Did you use a flash for those pics?

DanO - 2-21-2009 at 12:04 PM

I taught my kids that the name of that orange wasp is "RUN!"

cvchandler - 2-21-2009 at 12:54 PM

No flash used. I used my cheap Nikon DX 18-55 AF 3.5/5.5 lens set at 55. About 100 mm from end of lens to subject. About 3 pm. I am embarassed to say this lens was used for most of my pictures. I'm hoping to get a better general purpose zoom later this year. I bought some nice fixed length lenses but I have realized that a good zoom is the most important lens, at least in my opinion.
I will try experimenting with flash in future macro shots. Maybe it would have upset the subject and that wouldn't be good.

Its interesting how the Tarantula Hawk curls and straightens its two antennas.

This made a kind of low frequency noise when flying, I wouldn't call it loud but I'm getting half deaf these days.

elgatoloco - 2-21-2009 at 01:57 PM

:biggrin:

BajaBruno - 2-21-2009 at 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by cvchandler
No flash used. I used my cheap Nikon DX 18-55 AF 3.5/5.5 lens set at 55. About 100 mm from end of lens to subject. About 3 pm.

You made excellent use of natural light, which is always the best, in my opinion, but not always easy to do. Flash burns the film unless used very carefully, and fixed flashes on even good cameras typically have lousy sensors for determining intensity and duration of the flash.

Good job.

Sallysouth - 2-21-2009 at 09:13 PM

Yeah Crazycat! Thats what I thought this thread was about too before I opened it!! :biggrin:

docsmom - 2-22-2009 at 09:41 PM

Here in AZ we call them the tarantula wasp, but same critter. I hear they love to take out the giant wolf spiders so they're always welcome around my house!

DK, I don't know why you said to avoid the wind scorpion. We had lots of them when I lived in the high desert in CA and my exterminator said they were scary looking but of no harm. Many think they're the same as a vinageroon (sp?) but they're not.

David K - 2-22-2009 at 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by docsmom
Here in AZ we call them the tarantula wasp, but same critter. I hear they love to take out the giant wolf spiders so they're always welcome around my house!

DK, I don't know why you said to avoid the wind scorpion. We had lots of them when I lived in the high desert in CA and my exterminator said they were scary looking but of no harm. Many think they're the same as a vinageroon (sp?) but they're not.

Because I was told they are known as 'deer killers' in this hemisphere or 'camel spiders' in Asia/ Africa... they run fast, chase you, and have a bite worse than a scorpion! :light:

Here is from Nat'l. Geographic:

Massive jaws, voracious appetite, and sprinters' speed attest that these aggressive desert dwellers are built to kill.

Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

As the sun rose over the desert in Israel, a bizarre little creature stared at me, then rushed back to its burrow. With beady eyes, a hairy body, and jaws that bulged like Popeye's forearms, it was something from a nightmare. I had approached it with caution since wind scorpions, though not venomous, can inflict a painful bite on humans—and death on their prey. Zealous carnivores, they attack insects, rodents, lizards, snakes, and small birds, seizing them with jaws that can reach up to a third of their body length—among the largest for their size in the animal kingdom. Wielding those jaws like a combination pincer and knife, they chew their victims into pulp with a sawing motion. They then exude an enzyme that liquefies the flesh, which they suck into their stomachs.

Not actually scorpions, these predators are solifugids, members of the Arachnida, a class that includes spiders, mites, ticks, and true scorpions. Sometimes known as sun spiders, and called camel spiders in North Africa and the Middle East because of their humped profile, wind scorpions weigh as much as two ounces (56 grams) and can have leg spans exceeding five inches (12 centimeters). Most of the 1,100 species are nocturnal. Racing over the sand in the dark like supercharged dune buggies, they seem to know no fear.

[Edited on 2-23-2009 by David K]

David K - 2-22-2009 at 10:39 PM

Found this on the search... connecting 'matavenado' with the 'wind scorpion' description.

"MATA VENADO ! mata venado !" screamed a Mexican laborer as he hastily jumped up from his seat by the camp-fire. Judging from his excitment I might have expected to see some reptile as big as a rattlesnake crawling out from the place where he sat. " Mata venado ! mata venado ! he hysterically cried again as he pointed down with quivering finger to a queer, tan-colored spiderlike creature that ran swiftly off his sleeve and almost into the fire.

dr_know - 3-8-2009 at 02:55 AM

Just to let everybody know that persons of normal non alergic disposition (me) can play around with tarantula hawks !they have a really long stinger something in the order of more than 1/4 inch! but their venom is quite unlike anything else i have encounterd ,it hurts good but only about 2-3 min then it feels a little tingely like having your finger coming out of the effects of novocain for several hours not at all bad compared to just an ordinary yellowjacket

fixtrauma - 3-8-2009 at 06:08 AM

Because of a "life altering" experience with an entire hive of bees when I was a young child............any creature that buzzes, fly, has a body with two sections and looks anything like the creature in your picture............I call them all "Bee's" and as DanO described I get my feet in motion!!! I have had 50 years to work on tempering that reaction down but with not much success. :no:

By the way the photography is great and I too have seen them in the Baja even though for a short time only!! :saint:

windgrrl - 3-8-2009 at 11:54 AM

Yikes - saw these in Los Barriles. Baja sure is spiny and sharp!

Always use the "no touch" rule!