Back

Pepsis grossa

Pepsis grossa

Classification

Class
Insecta

Pepsis grossa is a species of very large pepsine spider wasp from the southern part of North America, south to northern South America. They prey on tarantula spiders, giving rise to the name tarantula hawk for the wasps in the genus Pepsis and the related Hemipepsis. Only the females hunt, so only they are capable of delivering a sting, which is considered the second most painful of any insect sting; scoring 4.

Distribution

(c) Seth Wollney, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC-BY
Loading map…
Countries in the Picchu catalog
Peru · 2Germany · 1