Saw this while off-road biking with my friend John Flood in San Diego’s Mission Trails Park this past August.  I didn’t know what it was as we don’t have any of these (any more?) in the Connecticut-New York-Pennsylvania area I grew up in.  But John knew that it was both called a Tarantula Hawk and that it was a spider wasp.  I know insects are strong.  But watching the wasp drag a comatose tarantula through the grass filled me with respect, awe, and a more than a little gratitude that insects are currently sized as they are.

[quicktime]http://www.terezakis.org/itp/video/tarantula-hawk-mission-trails-sd-2013_7225.mov[/quicktime]