I went out to the backyard this morning to put on a load of washing and caught up with the guy who lives upstairs, who was hanging his washing on the clothes line.

He pointed a curious thing out to me—a very large wasp was trying to drag a dead huntsman spider up the corrugated iron wall of shed in our back yard. Neither of us had seen anything like it. We figured that the wasp was trying to take the dead spider back to its nest, although we couldn't see any nests around.

I desperately wanted to photograph this weird little piece of nature but my camera batteries were dead. I went back to my flat, put the batteries on the charger and hoped, figuring that it was probably futile. Forty minutes later I came out to hang out my washing and the wasp was still trying as fervently as ever. Pulling the spider up a few inches and then slipping back to the ground. Up a few inches, slipping back.

Two hours later I came out with my camera (filled with charged batteries). The wasp was STILL there, having made zero progress but indefatigable in its efforts nonetheless.

I never knew that wasps killed (or ate) spiders! Especially ones larger than themselves. The wasp was so determined. It just kept on trying and kept on slipping back. Nor for a moment did it seem discouraged; it just kept on going.

I wasn't sure whether to be inspired or brought down by this. I was inspired by the way the wasp kept on struggling. It didn't feel sorry for itself or get depressed, it just got on with the job.

On the other hand, it was all futile because the wasp couldn't even drag the spider more than 15cm inches up the bottom of the wall, which had been roughened by the garden soil. Yet, just a few centimetres above the highest point that it had achieved, there was another 2 metres. of smooth corrugated iron wall to go before it could reach the top!

What if our lives are like that? We strive and struggle, feeling we're making progress. Looking for new ways of doing things, trying everything in the book. But what if, unbeknowns to us, there is another metaphorical 2 metres of smooth corrugated iron to to scale that we have no hope whatsoever of climbing??

Whatever, at last the wasp dropped the spider's body down a crack at the side of the wall. For a while it tried to drag it out but it couldn't do it. Then just sat there on the ledge. Maybe it was resting after it's ordeal (its Sysiphus impersonation?). I'm not sure it would it have the brains to sit there and assess the situation and plan a new approach of retrieving its prize. I'm pretty sure it wasn't sulking, as I specuated in the above photo-toon.

I came back half an hour later and the wasp was gone. I suppose it was off to look for its next spider ...

Postscript: I have just found an entry in Wikipedia about a type of wasp called a Tarantula Hawk. After reading it I am glad the spider was dropped and lost because it was saved from a fate FAR worse than death (a tale so gruesome it makes the Texas Chain Saw Massacre seem like Bambi).

Here are some excerpts ...

"The tarantula hawks seeks [female tarantulas] in their burrows. They capture (often following a dramatic battle), sting and paralyze the spider. Next they either drag the spider back into her own burrow or transport their prey to a specially prepared nest where a single egg is laid on the spider’s body, and the entrance is covered.

The wasp larva, upon hatching, begins to suck the juices from the still-living spider. After the larva grows a bit the spider dies and the larva plunges into the spider's body and feeds voraciously, avoiding vital organs for as long as possible to keep it fresh [EEEEKKK!!!!!!!]. The adult wasp emerges from the nest to continue the life cycle".

The good news is that it looks like the spider in our photo-toon wasn't actually dead and she may have managed to escape from her odeal alive :)