Spherical basket tomb

Oddities week - day 4

I made it out of the house early, but not as early as planned (06:30am). It was a dead loss and I packed it in after about twenty minutes. The only thing that I found was this curious pupae (I assume), I have never seen anything like it before. It was a skillfully constructed lattice of collected fibers, covered in a translucent, hardened glue, it kind of made me think of reinforced fiberglass. The surface was not rigid, rather more like thick polythene sheet.

Underneath was a large orange grub, possibly a caterpillar, but cannot be certain. It may already be in trouble, as there was a small white grub inside the basket, visible below and center of the orange grub (folio). I am going back for a second session, so I think I will collect the pupae and see what develops. Erik the pigeon could learn a lot from this grub!

I returned two and a half hours later and was amazed to discover that the rather flat dome had now developed into an elliptical sphere with no covering! I snipped the section of grassy leaf and stored it in a collection jar and continued my session.

It then occurred to me that this was probably the work of a wasp and the encased grub was the food for its offspring. It is common practice for a wasp to capture a bug and paralyze it, but not killing the bug. It then lays a single fertilized egg on the grub and then encases the bug, usually in a clay tomb. The egg hatches and the wasp grub consumes the food, pupates and emerges as a wasp. The wasp then chews its way through the encasement.

Back at the lab, further images revealed that the paralyzed grub was some kind of maggot or caterpillar but difficult to tell. It did appear to have three pairs of stubby legs. The grub itself was encased in a red coating and suspended in the spherical tomb.

I have chosen this blip as it shows the most detail, but two more shots have been added to folio to complete the story. I could have done a composite shot, but this would have reduced the size and detail of the individual images. The blipped image holds enough information to make sense of the blip after the folio vanishes.

If I had figured it out sooner, I would have camped there and tried for a shot of the wasp, but, too late now. I will keep the specimen in a CLOSED jar and see what develops.

I have added a selection of today's take in folio along with the grub images for your perusal, notably a couple of shots of the blue jumping spider trying to negotiate the hairs on the back of my hand, giving you some idea of the size of this tiny arachnid.

Not the most exciting blip, but certainly interesting and definitely qualifies as an oddity!

Edit - OMG, I got a crown! I thought my comment numbers were up a tad. Thank you all for the good wishes. Hair's are up on the back of my neck!

Dave