Wasp (which species?) : Stealing Prey!

tigger · #1 (**permalink**) 20-09-2009, 08:07 AM

Hi. I heard a loud buzzing in the garden, looked down to see this wasp "caught" in a spiders web. Thing was I soon realised it wasn't caught at all, it was stealing the spiders wrapped up prey from the middle of the web. In fact it was cutting off the head of the bee that has been caught in the web, and once it had cut off the head it flew up into our apple tree to eat it (see last pic)

Do you think this is a Common Wasp? (there is a pic of the head, straight on, which I'm hoping will help with ID) or something else?

I've never seen a wasp do this before... Thanks. Jane

tigger · #2 (**permalink**) 20-09-2009, 10:54 AM

Whoops! I've put this in the wrong place - Sorry.

I've added it again in the Insect section here

jaykay · #3 (**permalink**) 20-09-2009, 12:21 PM

interesting reading never-the-less

can't help with the answer though, sorry. Be interested to know if you get one, perhaps you could let us know on here also

tigger · #4 (**permalink**) 20-09-2009, 12:52 PM

If you have a look at the thread I started in the proper place (link in the second post above) I've had a few replies... weird behaviour... and poor old spider!