Wasps and Spiders Deadly 360

This is Deadly 360.

The show that pits three of the world's deadliest predators

against their pray.

We examine their hunting strategies

and their escape tactics from every angle.

By delving beneath the fur and the feathers,

we find out why a hunt succeeds...

and why they sometimes fail.

One thing's certain - prey animals are anything but sitting ducks.

Their defensive strategies keep them alive...

..and push predators to the limits.

Prepare for Deadly 360.

This is Deadly 360 mission control,

where all of today's action and analysis takes place.

From here, we have access to some of the most enthralling hunts

that have ever been caught on camera.

I've recreated three of the most exciting and analysed them

from a variety of different angles and perspectives.

The predators we're looking at have to find and catch food

or they won't make it.

In the wild world,

simply managing to survive is the greatest challenge of all.

I present to you the wasps and spiders.

Some people are scared of wasps and spiders

but they're some of the most diverse creatures on earth.

And to fully appreciate them,

I'll show you their complex and ingenious ways of getting a meal.

Their miniature world is not science fiction, but science fact.

We'll be checking out the spore spiders' ambush attack.

By using a cloak of invisibility,

unsuspecting ants might meet their end in the heat of the desert.

Next up, perhaps the largest wasp in the world

and a stripy terror to anything in its path -

the Japanese giant hornet.

And then the black spider wasp.

A parasitic wasp that uses her sting to turn spiders

into food for her babies.

These three bugs have a variety of weapons in their armoury,

all of them deadly.

They look invincible but there's a continual arms race on in nature

which ensures that prey animals are always evolving

spectacular ways of taking care of themselves.

First up, one of the fastest ants in the world, the dune ant.

Its long legs help keep it one step ahead of its attacker

and it has brutal jaws.

Then, the golden wheeling spider.

It has a venomous fangs for defence

but this eight-legged acrobat's best tactic

has to be seen to be believed.

And, last, the honey bee. A normally peaceful individual

but with tens of thousands in one colony, they can turn

on an attacker with strength in numbers and a venomous sting.

Three different prey,

each with cunning counter-attacks to keep them alive.

I have introduced you to all of our contenders.

Now it's time to meet our first deadly duo going head-to-head.

The first predator uses a cloak of invisibility to catch its prey.

It's the spore spider.

Up against it is this - the mighty dune ant.

At twice the spider's size, it's no easy meal.

But which animal has the edge in the race for life?

It's time to go Deadly 360.

We join the action just before the strike.

The spore spider is waiting to ambush

from the depths of its carefully positioned underground lair.

All it needs is one dune ant to stray on to its ingenious trap

but these ants are speedsters

and only hit the spider's trap for a split second.

How on earth can it react in time?

Even in a hunt like this, there are a lot of factors in play.

To find out why the hunter succeeds or fails,

we need to wind back and build up the entire hunt from the beginning.

So, where are we?

We're in southern Africa in the dunes and deserts of Namibia.

This is one of the toughest places in the world to survive.

It's dry and baking hot and food is extremely scarce.

The spore spider has had to evolve an incredible way of hiding

from the sun as well as some tactics to become an expert ant-muncher.

This means the dune ants not only have to avoid the heat

but also the spider's ambush.

It's fair to say this is a pretty challenging environment for a hunt.

What do our two animals have to give them an edge in such conditions?

The element of surprise is critical for the spider

so it keeps well hidden.

It has some scissor-sharp reactions, as well as gripping front legs

that hold on to prey with a vice-like grip.

All of that makes our predator a pretty scary prospect.

What does our prey have to counter?

Dune ants are twice the spider's size, with crushing jaws

and can hit speeds of nearly half a metre a second.

Scaled up, that's like me running 150mph.

With two worthy opponents, let's drop in on the action.

The heat of the Namibian desert can cause the surface of the sand

to hit temperatures hot enough to cook an egg.

Exposed to these conditions, the spore spider wouldn't last long.

Out here the only way to survive is to get out of the sun

but with virtually no plants to give cover,

what other options has the spider got?

Let's look at how the spider hides.

As it's moving its abdomen around,

it's using the spinnerets to create a silken blanket

on the surface of the sand and integrating grains of sand into it.

And look at this! It's created its very own invisibility cloak.

Within 30 seconds it's disappeared.

That sandy cloak acts like a parasol,

protecting it from the sun as it builds its deep, dark burrow.

This thermal image shows how the spider

moves down from the surface where it's punishingly hot -

it's marked in yellow and orange -

to this deeper sand that's blue or green and cooler.

This movement could be the difference between life or death.

But now the spider's beneath the sand and its prey, the ants,

are scurrying around above.

It doesn't have a web, it can't see them,

so how is it going to find a meal?

Well, let's take a closer look.

The spore spider sits cool and comfortable

inside its vertical burrow.

There's the silken blanket covering the hole.

And then a fine network of threads

running over the surface of the sand.

One single thread joins in the middle

and runs down into the burrow.

The spider sits with its front legs touching that thread.

Anything that runs over the threads on the surface

is going to trigger the trap

and the spore spider can leap into lethal effect.

OK, let's see this trap in action.

Positioning is critical for the spore spider's trap to work.

It places it between two rival ant colonies.

This means there's more chance of an ant from either side

running over the top of it.

It just has to be patient.

The ants are foraging for food on the dunes

where the sand can be scorchingly hot.

They handle the heat better than the spider with a crafty body design.

Their silver bodies reflect the sun's crippling heat.

And their long legs hold them up from the scorching sand.

Just 5mm off the surface, the temperature can be 15 degrees lower

and this is how they cope when looking for food.

And they have just found a large meal.

They need to get it back quickly

before the rival colony of ants picks up the smell.

Food is so scarce here that battles will break out over meals.

Dune ants will fight to the death to keep hold of it.

But what weapons does the ant have in its armoury?

Ants are a surprisingly diverse group of animals.

They all have the same basic body plan.

We have head, thorax, abdomen, six legs and antennae.

But the proportions can be very different.

In the dune ant we have a large head,

and very well-developed mandibles or jaws.

These are really useful for both attack and defence.

The ants are taking the food back to their nest

but out of range of the spider's ingenious booby-trap.

It needs one to come closer.

And it looks like the spore spider's chances of a meal have improved.

A rival colony of ants are invading, trying to steal food,

so the home side rush out to defend their meal

and this is in the spider's favour.

The ants will be concentrating on their enemy

and won't notice the spider's ingenious trap.

With everything to lose, the home side sends reinforcements

but don't realise they're heading straight towards the spore spider.

One sets off the trap, but the spider was too slow.

And again! That one's lucky to be alive.

But it's third time perfect for the spider.

It grips on to the ant with its front legs.

The ant is fighting back, trying to pull itself out,

but it's not working, so it tries landing a defensive bite.

But the spider uses the trapdoor like a shield,

blocking the ant's crushing bite, and it pins it to the hot sand.

This is where the spider's final tactic comes into play.

Let's see that thermal-imaging camera.

It's holding the ant down on that burning hot sand

and the ant literally cooks to death. That is just extraordinary.

The sun that has been the spider's enemy is now its friend.

The spore spider can now drag the ant down into the cool safety

of its underground lair where it can then get stuck in.

It's very easy for us to overlook the tiny invertebrate battles

that go on underneath our feet, but you have to say

in the case of the conflicts between the dune ant and the spore spider,

it's just as impressive as any large-scale animal battle.

This time, the spore spider was victorious.

The dune ant, despite having long, fast legs, a massive size advantage

and powerful jaws, got snared and cooked alive.

The spider's invisibility cloak, rapid reactions

and grasping front legs made a perfect ambush.

Now on to our next pair of hunters locked in a battle for survival.

This is one of the largest wasps in the world,

the Japanese giant hornet. Up against it is this,

a hive of honey bees with thousands of venomous stings for defence.

But which has the edge in the race for life?

It's time to go Deadly 360.

Once again, we drop in on the action in the final stages of the hunt.

30 worker hornets are scouring the area for food.

One hornet peels off from the group to inspect a honey-bee nest

filled with juicy grubs - the perfect meal.

She scent-marks at the entrance as a signpost to the others

that there is a food here before heading in to hunt down the grubs.

But the grubs aren't done for yet.

They have tens of thousands of worker bees to defend them,

each one armed with a venomous sting.

One on one, the hornet completely overwhelms the smaller honey bees.

Based on size alone, it looks like the prey is done for,

but don't give up hope just yet - it's rarely as simple as that.

Let's rewind to the start of the hunt and begin our investigation.

This battle is taking place in Japan and, more specifically, here,

the foothills of Mount Fuji.

This couldn't be more different to the dry desert of the spore spider.

It's a temperate region with plenty of flowers full of sugary nectar,

perfect for a busy bees' nest.

Where you find honey bees in Japan, you also find giant hornets.

Ferocious predators of pretty much anything

they can get their jaws into.

That is the arena for our gladiatorial contest.

What weapons and defences do the two animals doing battle have?

Japanese giant hornets are one of the largest wasps in the world

and come armed with many weapons,

from their snipping jaws to their fantastic sense of smell.

And their venomous sting that they can use time and time again.

They are so deadly, it's estimated giant hornets

may kill 70 people a year, so they are definitely best avoided.

It's clear we are dealing with another well-equipped predator,

but how is our prey going to try and neutralise the threat?

With a fantastic sense of smell, honey bees can sense danger early

and, like the hornet, they all come armed with a venomous sting.

But their strength comes from being able to defend themselves

in huge numbers to fight off their attackers.

Let's get back to the very start of the hunt.

The hornet grubs are hungry.

It's the worker hornet's job to find food for them.

This scout party is 30 hornets strong

and they scour the land for a meal.

The chief method they have to find food

is their remarkable sense of smell.

Those two antennae are covered with scent receptors.

They work like our nostrils and are incredibly sensitive.

They've picked up the sugary sweet smell from a nearby honey-bee nest.

The first thing she does is to create a scent trail behind her.

She uses chemicals called pheromones,

creating a marking post that both herself and fellow workers

can come back and find later on.

The honey bees see the danger of their monstrous attacker

so they waft their own chemical smell into the hive.

It's an alarm pheromone,

warning the others there's a deadly predator on their doorstep.

Armed with venomous stings, you'd think they would fight

but, instead of trying to get rid of their attacker,

they are actively encouraging it into the hive.

This seems like mass suicide.

Even once they've let the hornet in, the workers are still holding back.

They don't seem interested in defending their grubs.

And with no opposition,

the hornet starts attacking with her powerful jaws.

Let's just pause the action there.

It might look like a total mismatch

and the hornet is going to easily destroy these bees,

but that's only one of tens of thousands defending the grubs.

However, the hornet's jaws did get through that one bee

incredibly quickly.

Let's get a closer look at why those jaws are so special.

The giant hornet is an absolute machine.

It looks like some kind of insane flying robot.

It's one of the largest wasps in the world with a wingspan of over 7cm.

Believe it or not, that's double the wingspan

of the smallest bird in the world.

If you compare it to the size of our bee, it absolutely dwarfs it.

It's probably five times the length and many, many times the size.

At the front end of the hornet

is this extraordinary pair of mandibles.

They move together, almost like a pair of scissors,

and they can clip clean through other insects, like the bees.

Let's go back to the moment

when it encountered the first bee at the entrance to the hive.

As the hornet cuts through the bee's body,

it releases an explosion of the bee's attack pheromone.

This is the signal all the bees have been waiting for.

Now the hornet's inside the hive, they can counter-attack en masse.

If the hornet got past them now,

it could easily munch its way through the soft grubs

so they throw hundreds of bees into the battle.

But they're not using their venomous stings.

When a bee uses its sting, it will die soon afterwards.

The number of bee deaths would be too great

so what are the bees doing?

We need to switch to a thermal image to properly understand this one.

The hottest areas are shown in white.

You can see that around the hornet, it is getting incredibly hot.

The bees have powerful flight muscles

and they are vibrating them which is generating heat

and that is the bees' most efficient defence.

Hornets can only survive temperatures up to 46 degrees

but bees can survive temperatures of 48.

Those two degrees are the difference between life and death.

Able to withstand the heat, the bees are cooking the hornet alive.

And by not using their stings, the bees have nearly all survived.

An incredible defensive tactic.

But there's still one critical thing the bees have to do.

Remember, when the hornet arrived,

it stamped its smelly pheromone trail all over the entrance.

Now the bees have to get rid of that smell

and they're doing that by chewing away with the mandibles

on the wood that's covered in pheromone.

However, they just can't work fast enough

and the hornet scouts are on their way.

They may have won the battle but they haven't won the war.

That scent mark left by the first hornet is still strong enough

to guide in 30 more scouts to the bees' home.

There's panic within the hive.

With so many predators, the bees change tactic and rush outside

but that's exactly where the hornets want them.

Outside the hive,

the hornets can outmanoeuvre the bees' swarming tactics

and use those jaws and stings with deadly effect.

Bee after bee attempts to defend the grubs.

The battle goes on for three hours and, in that time,

the 30 hornets have killed 30,000 bees.

The grubs' defensive wall has been breached.

The hornets can now enter the hive.

The last few workers offer little resistance.

The defenceless grubs are butchered into pieces by the hornets.

The next generation has been wiped out

and the entire colony is completely destroyed.

It's a scene of utter devastation.

The hornets then take back the grubs to feed to their own young.

They've won this epic battle.

Initially it looked like the honey bees' superior tactics

were going to pay off

but as it took about 500 bees to overcome one hornet,

as soon as the hornets attacked en masse, it was all over.

Honey bees have venomous stings, strength in numbers

and the power to kill using heat, but only with single attackers.

The hornet's fantastic sense of smell, slicing jaws

and superior size gave them victory when they worked as a unit.

This is our last deadly duo locked in a battle for life or death.

Our final predator is the black spider wasp.

Another expert hunter on the sand dunes.

Up against it is this, the golden wheeling spider.

But which animal has the edge in the race for survival?

It's time to go 360.

We join the action at the crucial moment.

The female black wasps is busy trying to land a venomous sting

to paralyse the spider.

She needs to stun it before she can lay her egg on it,

turning the spider into live food for her baby.

The golden wheeling spider has impressive fangs

but the wasp has faster reactions and a venomous sting.

If we freeze the action at this crucial moment,

who do the odds favour, the predator or the prey?

To find out, let's take it back to the start

and build up the entire hunt from the beginning.

We're back in the hot deserts of Namibia,

but we're heading to a different region

far away from the spore spider and dune ants.

These sand dunes are hundreds of metres high

and the desert itself is about 50 million years old.

The battle between the wasp and the spider

has been going on for a very long time

and evolved into possibly the most epic battle of all.

We've set the scene,

but how do these animals operate in this environment

and what attributes do they have

that might tip the balance in their favour?

This is one of the most impressive and lethal

of all the wasps in the world.

They can dart at speeds of 15mph

with perfectly adapted legs for surviving in the desert.

Add to that an extremely venomous sting

and it's a worthy opponent for any bug.

An impressive line-up of hunting skills but, as ever on Deadly 360,

our prey animal is armed with some pretty impressive means of defence.

The golden wheeling spider is an expert

in hiding from predators in this barren land.

They come armed with monstrous fangs.

But they have a trick to avoid capture that will amaze you.

More on that in a bit.

Right, back to the hunt.

We're going straight over to the spider.

It's dawn, so this nocturnal spider is in a dangerous place.

Exposed to the heat and potential predators that daybreak brings,

it must seek cover and fast.

Its arch nemesis, the spider wasp, has started its day of hunting

a few hundred metres down at the bottom of the dune.

Luckily, the spider is in the perfect place to dig into the sand.

The spider's at the top of the dune. Digging up here is much easier

because the sand grains are smaller and much lighter.

With its eight legs, the spider's effectively equipped

with eight different shovels to do the digging.

It can shift about 80,000 times its own body weight in sand

when it's digging its burrow.

At the bottom of the dune,

the female wasp is busy searching for the spider.

Its paralysing sting is poised and ready.

Let's take a closer look at that phenomenal sting.

The wasp we're looking at is a female

and at this end is the stinger.

The stinger is actually very interesting.

It's what's called a modified ovipositor,

which sounds pretty complicated but all it is is an egg-laying tube,

except, in this case, it has been slightly changed

so it can act to inject venom.

The venom inside is what's called neurotoxic.

It attacks the nervous system of its prey.

When it stings the spider, it actually paralyses it.

Let's see how this one plays out.

The wasp has relatively poor eyesight

but staying hidden isn't quite enough for the spider.

It needs to dig deeper under the sand

because its tell-tale aroma is being carried on the desert breeze.

The wasp is picking up those smells using its antennae

and special feathery hairs on the legs

which are adapted to pick up smells.

It can detect the scent of the spider even though it's underground.

And the smell's getting stronger. She knows the spider is nearby.

Now she's found its hideaway she begins to rake back the sand,

able to shift 300 times her own body weight.

It's only a matter of time before she unearths it,

and when she does, she will try and sting the spider to stun it.

She will then lay a single egg on the spider,

the larva will hatch out and feed on spider flesh.

Now the spider is exposed, it's an epic fight for life.

It rears up to look as big as possible,

displaying the most fearsome defensive weapons.

Some incredibly large and venomous fangs.

Let's look at those in closer detail.

The spider is an accomplished predator in its own right.

The fangs are a very specific shape.

They're joined to these structures, called chelicerae.

The venom gland is here.

And it can swing those fangs forward and stab down towards its prey.

But it does have one distinct disadvantage.

The spider is incapable of striking upwards.

That means any potential attacker, like our wasp,

just has to come at the spider from above

and it physically cannot retaliate. Let's see how this plays out.

On the top of the sand dune, it's fang verses sting,

but the wasp has much faster reactions.

It doesn't look good for the spider if this goes on much longer.

But just when the number is nearly up, it unleashes a secret weapon.

Tucking the legs into the body,

the golden spider turns itself into a wheel

and spins off down the dune at over 40 cycles a second.

This changes its shape and blurs its outline.

The wasp doesn't recognise the blur as food

so doesn't follow the spider.

Safe at the bottom of the sand dune,

it's so far away that the wasp can't smell it.

She's left at the top

trying to work out where her baby's eight-legged meal has just gone.

Of course, if it hadn't made its burrow at the top of the dune,

it wouldn't have been able to get up enough speed to wheel itself down.

But at least the spider survives.

Evading a parasite that's evolved solely to overcome you

is incredibly difficult

but the golden wheeling spider has achieved this in spectacular form.

Golden wheeling spider, one, spider wasps, nil.

The spider wasp missed out on this occasion

despite its incredible sting, sense of smell and speedy reactions.

The golden wheeling spider has huge fangs and eight legs for digging

and turned into a turbo wheel to escape with its life.

Many people have an irrational fear of creepy-crawlies.

I say irrational because we as human beings

don't have that much to worry about from spiders and wasps.

That's not true of the animals they feed on.

In the world of invertebrates, these creatures are monsters.

That's all we have got time for.

Join us next time as three more pairs of animals go head-to-head

and we analyse the action Deadly 360 style.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]