Hornet Attack

TvDetective and I had lunch today. We were sitting on a bench when all of a sudden there was this loud buzzing and fluttering sound, and next thing I knew, something hit the ground in front of us. It turned out it was a HUGE hornet and a cicada, fighting. The cicada struggled a little bit more, buzzing and flapping its wings wildly for a few more moments until it finally just stopped moving. The hornet appeared to continue attacking it for a couple more seconds, and then it started dragging the cicada—which was every bit as big as the hornet itself, maybe bigger—across the pavement. I kept wondering where it was going to take it. It just kept dragging it until it got to the edge of the sidewalk, where there was a 3 or 4 inch curb to go over. Ok, i figured this was it, and it was just trying to drag its prey out of the way of the oncoming foot traffic. But amazingly, the hornet just “jumped” up over the curb, cicada in tow, and kept dragging it across the grass and dirt toward the nearby tree. Maybe there was a burrow in the ground where the hornet kept its food? No. It started dragging the cicada right up the tree! By the time we finally left, it was at least 12 feet up the tree. I still don’t know what it’s going to do with the cicada. Does it lay eggs inside it? Does it suck the juices dry? I don’t know, but it was just amazing to watch.

update: thanks to fishy, i now know that it wasn't a hornet, but a wasp. A cicada killer wasp, specifically. he found this page with a photo that looks EXACTLY like what TvD and I saw:

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/killerwasps.html

It turns out the cicada isn't dead yet; just paralyzed. And the reason the wasp was taking the cicada up the tree was just to get enough height to fly back to its burrow because the cicada is so heavy! As fishy said, "kinda ingenious." Then he said, "gotta switch networks," and signed off. Helpful bastard.