Aggressive little visitor - what was it?

[Gregg in exile]

Today I witnessed an epic battle. In our shed there is a massive spider. I am not too bad with spiders but this think is huge. Very meaty, jet black and very quick. I see it pop out to demolish the odd woodlouse, bee, fly, earwig or anything. It lives on the top of an old piano.

Anyway, today a creature flew into the glass and into his/her web. Out came the spider and what then occurred was a 5-10 struggle. The spider came right out passed its normal area and chased this insect all over the piano.

The insect in question was about 4-5cm long with a massive (and very obvious) sting on its rear end. It was slim, but long and basically went toe to toe with the spider until it flew off. The thing is it actually went after the spider, back in to its lair. What kind of creature was this? I thought Hornet to start with but on wiki a hornet just looks like a big wasp, and I've seen these before. This was much longer but not a broad but it was very aggressive. Its sting was about 5mm long and by the reaction of the spider (it reared up on its back legs a few times) it wouldn't want to get a sting. My question really is what was this creature? Also, I am knocking down the wood shed soon, I have no idea what I am doing to do with Mr/Mrs spider!

[Richard]

Hi,

You didn't mention the colour?

It wasn't the 'humming bird moth' as per the post by p.penn a few threads down was it?

Other one could be an 'Ichneumon wasp' - try google image search.



Cheers, Richard

[Gregg in exile]

Ah, the colour. It was dark, possibly almost black.

The defence against a spider 10 times its size was amazing... then it flew off. Tail was like a scorpion. I was kind of hoping the spider would get stung, as I don't care much for giant shed spiders!

I think it was the Inchneumeon wasp by the looks of it. Very impressive creature.