Black wasp

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A black wasp, a, is a type of monster that appears in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM. It has a single sting attack that can poison its victim.

Eating a black wasp corpse or tin has a 35 chance of conveying poison resistance.

Generation

Black wasps always generate hostile and may appear in large groups.

Strategy

Black wasps are fast and can deal decent damage with their sting, giving black wasp swarms the ability to overwhelm an unprepared character. Most players entering the midgame should already have poison resistance and various means of dealing with large groups: an Elbereth engraved in dust can be enough to scatter the wasps, making it easier to isolate and kill them. Black wasps share the same glyph as the weaker yellow jacket or killer bee - be sure to far look any a you see via : (particularly if you have telepathy) so that you are not caught off guard.

Origin

Hymenoptera is a large order of insects comprising the various types of wasps, as well as bees, sawflies and ants. The great black wasp (Sphex pensylvanicus) is a species of digger wasp that lives across most of North America and grows to a size of 20–35 mm (0.8–1.4 in); the males of the species are smaller than females on average.

Like most digger wasps, adult females use their stingers to inject paralyzing venom into prey such as katydids and grasshoppers, then carry the still-living prey to their underground nest - eggs are laid on the prey insects (rather than inside as stated by the encyclopedia entry), providing a food source for the wasp larvae when they eventually hatch.

Encyclopaedia entry

This encyclopedia entry only appears in Hack'EM:

These insects are feared for their ability to lay eggs inside
the bodies of their prey.