Mud Daubers

Well…  I feel quite crappy.  I grew up being scared to death of “mud daubers.”  I just found a couple of mud “tubes” on the brick wall of my front porch.  I doused it with half a can of wasp spray and took off running, even though, nothing flew out.

I let it sit for about an hour before using a hoe to scrape it off the wall.

This is what came out:

Huh?  What are these things?  Spiders???? 

So, I came inside to look up what else lives in a mud dauber-type house, and this is what I found on Wikipedia: 

Organ pipe mud daubers are also an exceedingly docile species of wasp, and generally pleasant to have around, as they serve to keep spider populations down. Stings to humans are very rare, bordering on non-existent, although if squeezed, they will sting in self-defense. At first, I thought:  “Great…  now I’ve killed a bunch of harmless baby mud daubers.”  But then I went back to Wikipedia and Google and started clicking through links about mud daubers.

No, these AREN’T mud dauber babies.  The adult female collects a bunch of spiders by stinging and paralyzing them.  She carries them back to the mud tube, stuffs as many spiders as she can into the tube, lays an egg, seals the tube shut and starts on another tube.

So, now I’m like: “Great…  I still killed a bunch of harmless baby mud dauber eggs, AND I’VE GOT FRIGGING UGLY SPIDERS SOMEWHERE AROUND MY HOUSE THAT LOOK LIKE THIS!”

So…  what are these nasty things?  Are they good or bad?

P.S.  The picture really is no good so I went out and scooped up a little baggieful of the nasty things. 

They have a bulbous body with a slightly pointed butt.  They are more smooth than hairy with long, spindly striped legs.  They are a funny grey-ish green color.  Some of them have a little bit of black detail (though one has much stronger black markings than the others).  Their coloring is messed up, though, from being mud dauber paralyzed and then doused with half a can of wasp spray.

After rooting around on Google images for awhile, all I’ve been able to determine is that *I think* it’s a member of the Theridiidae family (?).  Ick.  Spiders give me the eebie jeebies.