Red wasp hunting grasshopper.

These sequences were captured on May 14th 2010 in Athens, GA, USA. Young grasshopper nymphs (Romalea microptera) all emerged together as a brood were hanging out on a plant (Galium spp.). There were 17 of them. Red wasp (Polistes carolina) began hovering over for a couple of minutes and attacked one of them. The wasp began eating by chewing the abdomen first and later flew over to the top of a kudzu vine (Pueraria montana) to eat the rest. Although people cite those grasshoppers to emit predator repelling secretions, the wasp seemed to have no problem and devoured almost completely. Next day, I searched frantically for more of the grasshoppers hoping I can capture more incidence of predation. I could only find two. I am assuming the wasp had an impressive prey capture efficiency or the grasshoppers defensively spread and ran away.