Tarantula Hawk

We were eating lunch out on the patio today when Cindy said, "What is THAT?"  She had seen a large black bug with red-orange wings on the ground by the wall.

The bug had a shiny black, wasp-like body and was about an inch and half to two inches long, but its most distinctive feature was its flame-colored wings.  It moved too rapidly for me to be able to run in and get my camera, so all we could do was watch while it checked out our shrubbery and then flew off toward the neighbors' yard.

After it flew off I ran inside and started checking the San Diego Museum of Natural History's website and the University of California's Invasive Pest Management (IPM) website, but had no luck finding it.

So I finally gave up and just Googled "black bug with red wings", and found the Tarantula Hawk Wasp, a large wasp that feeds its larvae on Tarantulas and other spiders.  It's apparently pretty widespread in San Diego.

Although the Tarantula Hawk is supposedly not aggressive toward humans, its sting is apparently strong enough to paralyze a huge spider and can be very painful.  That's enough warning for me; if we see another one, we'll leave it alone.

However, that now makes us wonder if it's finding tarantulas in the vicinity of our yard.  Snakes, large hairy spiders, stinging wasps; I'm not even going to wonder what might be next.