What the...wasp?

I always see those little mud tubes on the sides of the house or around the farm, but I assumed they were some type of worm or something. That is, until I saw a group of them on the bench on our front porch. One was knocked off and what was inside was not a worm.


It was a dead spider. So naturally, even though I had somewhere to be, I ran inside to get a knife and thoroughly investigate the rest of the mud nests.

I videoed it so all of my loyal readers could share the intriguing experience with me.

As you can see from the video, all of the nests include at least one dead spider, but most have more. Kinda weird.... And all of the spiders are different types. That's what I found most interesting. If it'd been a spider nest of some sort, all of the dead spiders would be the same type.

So when I got back home I googled the spider mud nest things. I came up with a wasp. Really? Apparently there are two types of mud wasps that do virtually the same thing. One type makes the longer, grouped mud nests I've seen--like this:

They're called the organ pipe mud dauber. Mine is just called a mud dauber. You can tell the difference in the nests. Anyway, I guess these little guys carry mud to build the nests with their mouths, then hunt spiders and sting them to immobilize them. They then stuff them in the tubes and lay an egg. The egg hatches and feasts on the soft parts of the spider first, then continues with the rest until mature enough to break free from it's muddy cocoon.

Freaky, huh?

I thought the little white grub thing was just maggot or something, until I realized it's the mud dauber larvae. Gross, but totally cool.

Have you guys investigated something like this?