The real question raised by the tarantula hawk’s practice of paralyzing and laying its eggs into a tarantula before burying it is this; how does it know what a tarantula is, if it was born in the dark, underground, inside the thing? How does it know to go after the tarantula, sting it, bury it, etc.?

And the really startling metaphysical conclusion is this; the wasp enters the world already equipped with knowledge. The ‘blank slate’ conception of the mind is thus disproved by observation.