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Phantom Prey
Wasp burying 'phantom' prey?
I remember seeing, probably more than a decade ago, a video of a wasp (digger wasp?) burying some paralysed prey that was removed by the researcher while the wasp was busy 'checking out the hole', and the wasp went through the motions of burying anyway. Can anyone confirm this behaviour in a wasp, or identify the video?
The wasp in question was a member of the Pompilidae. The wasp first paralyses its prey and then buries it, to serve as a food source for its developing grubs. As the spider or other victim is not dead, the "meat" remains fresh.
These actions of the wasp are all fundamentally controlled by 'hard wired' actions; it cannot significantly alter them. A spider has been seen to lose its egg sac - normally slung on strands of web between its back legs - then pick up a snail shell of similar proportions and carry that instead. Again, it could not "think" of an alternative form of behaviour. Many similar cases have been observed.