Here's a huge wasp dragging a huntsman spider around a kitchen

Ah, nature.
 By 
Johnny Lieu
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Not content with giving us snakes eating each other, or exceptionally giant spiders who eat mice, nature has plenty more frightening animal-on-animal oddities to throw up.

Take for example this orange spider wasp dragging a large, incapacitated huntsman spider in Sydney, Australia.

"It came in the back door while we were doing some DIY and started dragging the thing around the place," video creator Adam Farrow-Palmer explained to Mashable via Messenger. "...it flew up when I got too close."

Eventually him and his friends followed the wasp to the bathroom, where eventually they captured both insects and took them both outside, but once outdoors again, the remarkably large wasp left its dinner behind.

The story of how these insects eat their prey however, is a little messed up.

"In the video the huntsman has been stung and paralysed by the wasp," David Bock, coordinator at the Australian Museum's Search and Discover Department, explained to Mashable.

"What it'll do is pretty much drag it in a straight line back to its nest. It's already dug a burrow, so take the spider down while it's still alive. [The wasp] will then lay a single egg in it, the baby will hatch out and then it'll start to eat the spider alive," he added.

"It eats the spider bit by bit, leaving the vital organs last so it'll stay alive for longer." It could take days for the wasp to finish it meal. Eww.

While the insect is found broadly around Australia, fortunately for humans they're not super aggressive -- although their stings do hurt.

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Johnny Lieu

Mashable Australia's Web Culture Reporter.Reach out to me on Twitter at @Johnny_Lieu or via email at jlieu [at] mashable.com

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