Metallic Brown Spider Wasp - ? Auplopus sp.

Family POMPILIDAE

This page contains pictures and information about Metallic Brown Spider Wasp that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.


Body length 15mm

This wasp is relatively small as a Spider Wasp. It has the brown thorax and legs. Its head is Golden-brown in colour.



Dec 2006 in Karawatha Forest, we saw a small wasp moving a spider. The spider was slightly larger than the wasp. The wasp was pulling the spider and moving quite fast on ground.

We following the wasp and saw it move the spider to a place at the bottom of a large tree trunk.



The wasp hided the spider in a small cavity. The spider look like a ground-hunting spider but we can not identify the spider.



We found this wasp a few times in Karawatha Forest, which always searching on the floor.

Reference:
1. Insects of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 975.