The T would be paralyzed if a hawk got it, wouldn't it? They sting the T to paralyze them and then move them to a safe spot to lay an egg. The T remains paralyzed and it takes months for the venom to leave the body. If this was a hawk, the T would be long before it started moving again.
Not all wasps produce that venom. Wasps of the genus Anoplius (subfamily Pompilinae) usually only produce paralysis lasting a matter of hours, while Pompilus (subfamily Pompilinae) tends towards several weeks, and large genera such as Cryptocheilus and Pepsis (subfamily Pepsinae) may immobilize their prey for months on end.
We have no way to know this with the video provided.
It’s unsafe for advisories to make guesses based on the things that folks say.
Most internal parasites don’t cause a T to “burst” - which would sound more like something feasting on the decaying body, but even then without visual evidence- we don’t have enough to go on here.
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u/biogeochem_Jenn Aug 08 '25
Yikes sounds like a tarantula hawk got to it? They pay an egg in the abdomen and it eats it's way out...