Wasp from my Nightmares

For another gouache experiment, I turned to the devil of the sky.  Or, the creature that seemed that way to a younger me—the tarantula hawk, the largest and most powerful of the parasitoid wasps.  Other species of parasitoid wasps target cicadas, caterpillars, and ladybugs.  The tarantula hawk goes after a large spider that eats mice and small snakes.  Despite being much larger than the wasp, the spider is outgunned.  After the wasp paralyzes the tarantula with a sting, it’s larva eats the spider slowly, while it is still alive.

As a child, I loved spiders and kept a pet tarantula.  In the picture books about spiders which I read and re-read, I skipped over the part about the tarantula hawk, after reading it once and being horrified.

I suppose that the prolonged torture of a living tarantula to nurture a newborn wasp is part of nature and therefore we must accept it?  Charles Darwin saw parasitoid wasps as evidence that the universe was not created by an omnipotent and loving god.

Tarantula hawks are common in the desert where I work, and I’ll acknowledge that their blue-black iridescence can be quite pretty.  Virginia’s state insect is the eastern tiger swallowtail.  Pennsylvania’s state insect is the firefly.  New Mexico’s state insect is the tarantula hawk.

Vespa Returns!

I have some stories in the works, about encounters with herds of elk and the like. In the meantime, it is time for Vespa to make a re-appearance! The lady of the hornets rises and rules her domain. She and her wasps make war against those who despoil the earth. I recently started planning my third attempt at an origin story comic for Vespa, and advise all to stay tuned .... but don't hold your breath!

A Revival for Insects

As I write these words, rain falls in a steady drizzle, across the expansive and flat landscape of the Chihuahuan desert. I'm glad to be inside this old stone house, with a cup of hot tea, listening to the persistent tapping and gushing. The desert needs rain. We have not had enough of it in recent years. Cacti and ocotillo and agave have extraordinary abilities to sustain themselves on low water, but even they will eventually meet their limits. And the drought is the most likely explanation why our numbers of bats have been lower than previously years. Carlsbad Caverns is famous for the Brazilian free-tailed bats that rise from the cave in a giant thunderhead, composed of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Bat flights this year have featured only a thin, steady stream of the flying mammals. The bats feast upon flying insects, mostly moths and beetles. In a drought-stricken landscape, there are fewer insects, which prompts bats to go elsewhere.

Even with the drought, some rugged insects persist. I am familiar with this desert's diversity of ants, as both the large and red and the tiny and black varieties scamper through my dwelling, and leave no tiny crumb of foodstuff or minute leg of cricket uneaten. And there are the cicadas whose song fills the air on the mid-morning hike to Slaughter Canyon cave. The desert is a fearsome, eat-or-be-eaten world, and so many invertebrates are armed, with stingers, fangs, or chemical defenses. On my night walks, I have encountered tarantulas (see previous entry), scorpions, centipedes, and millipedes. By night and by day, wasps and tarantula hawks buzz past.

It will take more than today's rainfall for the desert to recover from drought, but it is a beginning. We must bring a stop to anthropogenic climate change, for it is the cause of much of our recent spate of planetary extreme weather. In the meantime, as a tribute to the insects, I am sharing a few drawings (above and below.) These hornets were inspired by a nest which a friend and I found on a hike in the forests of Oregon. But they are equally fitting to the desert, and its panoply of insects who bite and sting for defense.

Hornet Woman and Scarier Things

With Halloween at the near, I ought to share something spooky.

On a recent hike along the Rogue River beginning near Union Creek, my comrade Lesley—who has the eyes of an owl—chanced upon an abandoned hornet's nest, on the ground, having fallen from a tree, and now withering away. Instantly, I noted that it looked like the face of a monster, or zombie perhaps. And Lesley expressed a desire to see my depiction of said creature. After a few sketchbook attempts at beasts with the layered carapace of the hornet's nest, I came upon “Hornet Woman."

I am considering making her the subject of a comic book. She has potential.

All autumn at Crater Lake, I guided children on school field trips through a forest of hemlock trees and—yellow jackets. In the warm autumn, the stinging insects were prevalent. On cold days, they slowed to a torpor. For many insects, weather has a direct impact on behavior, including activity and breeding. In our modern era of global warming, we have increased populations of mosquitoes and the diseases they carry. And the whitebark pines featured in my previous post are getting devoured by mountain pine beetles, who are in a population boom, thanks to climate change.

While bees and wasps are rather non-agressive, and not to be feared, they may be an indicator of something truly ominous.

I hope that we come together against global warming, before it's too late.