Weird Spider-y find in the loft!

[CooCooCachoo]

Anyone seen this before? Discovered this under my DS’s bed when moving him out of his loft room to a cooler room downstairs. It looks like a hard shell full of baby spiders. I’m torn between relief they didn’t fully hatch and wondering what exactly stopped them from properly escaping in the first place. I’ve also noticed a few of these yellowish/orange babies around the house so suspect it’s not an isolated incident. We’re in North West France.

Omg sod that ☠️

Sorry that wasn’t a remotely helpful comment but I’ve never seen anything like that!

OMG!! Never seen this (thankfully!)

@TheFormidableMrsC my reaction exactly. Plus my DS has now refused to empty the rest of his room…so it will just all have to stay up there indefinitely because I’m not bloody rummaging around up there now either…

I think it's a wasp nest - the spiders are the food source! It's not made by spiders. I'm no wasp expert, but I am a spider keeper.

That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. And I don’t mind spiders

A bit of googling later - it's a mud dauber wasp nest. They paralyze the spiders and lay an egg on them so when they egg hatches, the larva has a ready meal in the form of the spider.
According to google, they are docile solitary wasps.
Pretty cool - never seen one before!

Yes, a wasp nest. The poor spiders are paralysed & walled up with the wasp eggs, ready to be eaten alive

Spider wasp cocoon. The female spider wasp makes a small clay cocoon, stuffs it with paralysed spiders (all from the same species as each species of spider wasp specialises in a single species of prey spider) and then lays an egg on it. For whatever reason the spider wasp larva failed to thrive so you ended up with a cocoon full of paralysed/dead spiders.

Yes its just a mud dauber wasp nest. Totally harmless and absolutely bloody lovely.

I have one that builds nests in my pottery shed, I watched her take tiny pieces of mud from the splatters of clay across the floor, up under my leg to under the table I use again and again in the spring. Usually they are on the wooden shed wall behind a bag or tool.

The insect world is gruesome. I showed DH the photo and he said immediately what it was. Uggggh horrific !

Or possibly the insides of the spiders have been eaten and the larvae have gone ?

Wow fascinating to learn from the responses here. Spider 'ready meals' for baby wasps!! Amazing.

So they are IMPORTING spiders! I have just googled mud-dauber wasp and you are absolutely right, I’ve seen these insects in the house. We have high ceilings so I tend to think, live and let live, and make sure there’s a window open so they can find their way out again. Little did I know I am harbouring a potential whole bloody nursery of them, I see one of these at least once a day!

A spiders worst nightmare. But they're not dangerous or aggressive to humans. They're really interesting too!

I am also grateful for the knowledge shared! I am googling but cannot see whether non-eaten spiders ´reanimaté or are perpetually paralysed…..(fetches hoover sharpish).

Not harmless to the poor paralysed spiders!

OMG OP this is fucking gross

Not helpful

Thanks goodness you have some helpful posters 😂