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Four online photographs from Oaxaca, Mexico taken by N. R. Jenzen-Jones and posted on inaturalist.org reveal Selenops sp., probably S. mexicanus Keyserling (Arachnida: Araneae: Selenopidae), as a new host spider species, genus and family for the common and widespread American spider wasp Tachypompilus ferrugineus (Say) (rusty spider wasp). The wasp transported the immobilized spider up an exterior stucco wall of a house, dorsal side upward, walking backwards for 3m to her nest in a gap between the wooden planking and stucco wall beneath the roof, while grasping the femur of its right pedipalp with her mandibles.
Macrophotographs in series taken by Alice Abela on sandy coastal dunes in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, CA in 2010–2021 supplement and enhance F. X. Williams (1928) study of the ecology and nesting behavior of the trapdoor spider-hunting spider wasp Aporus (Plectraporus) hirsutus (Banks) (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae: Aporini). Abela’s macrophotographs and observations provide new details of adult wasp feeding, functional morphology, hunting, digging and prey transport, and host spider trapdoor, entrance, burrow structure, host capture and escape activity. Newly reported host records from this study and online photographs expand A. hirsutus host selection in the large wafer-lid trapdoor spider genus Aptostichus Simon (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Euctenizidae). The A. hirsutus California geographic distribution map by Wasbauer and Kimsey (1985) is updated, thereby providing a broader definition of intraspecific variation in this species.
Close-up photographs of nest entry, nest closure and prey transport taken on sandy coastal back dunes in Santa Barbara County, CA by Alice J. Abela substantiate and enhance written descriptions of these nesting behavior components in Miscophus californicus (Ashmead) [=M. laticeps (Ashmead)] (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae). Dictynidae (Dictyna Sundevall or Emblyna Chamberlin) is introduced as a new host family and host spider leg amputation is revealed for the first time for this small miscophine wasp.