Sunday Spinelesness - One for the arachnophobes?

It occurs to me that some readers might be put off by my affection for spiders. I'd be interested to see which creature, the wasp or the spider, you find yourself cheering for at the end of this post. Let's introuduce them. First, the large black hunting wasp Priocnemis monachus emerging from its burrow in one of the steps on our garden path (I messed up the focus, but nature has a way of refusing to re-pose):

And the creature the black hunting wasp has been hunting, one of the native tunnelwebs Porrhothele antipodiana:

Po. antipodiana is pretty cool spider, it's one of very few that are capable of eating snails. Snails usually avoid the attentions of ground dwelling spiders by being too slimy to get a hold off and being able to retract into their shell. Po. antipodiana get's around those defenses by hooking its fangs into the snail's body and holding on while the snail struggles, produces tonnes of mucus and finally succumbs to the spider. A couple of months ago I gave a talk to a local school who wanted someone to help their study of invertebrate lifestyles and one of the kids told me that he'd seen a tunnelweb eating a snail. The budding naturalist didn't seem at all proud when I told him that he'd observed a behaviour that was only recognised by scientist 30 years ago. I guess 30 years seems an impossibly long time when your 10!