We accidentally broke open a mud-dauber wasp nest under our house while moving some equipment. The mud cells were packed with paralysed jumping spiders of multiple species. The culprit was a slender orange wasp belonging to the genus Sceliphron obviously specialising in spiders from the family Salticidae.
The adult female wasp captures and paralyses the spiders and then packs them into the mud cells. She then lays an egg before closing the cell over with mud. The spiders are paralysed, but not killed so that they do not rot and the wasp larva can consume them over time. I rearranged the contents of one cell for this photograph. A wasp larva is in the centre in the process of consuming a spider.
