They have a bold, jerky gait, and their vivid colour is aposematic to warn off visual predators such as birds and lizards.

[4] S. nitidus hunts terrestrially in a variety of situations such as underneath and within logs, debris, and rotting wood, arboreally in shrubs and bushes, and on shingles and under boulders.

It finishes by brushing the tip of its own abdomen with alternate strokes of the entire hind tibia and tarsus for 3–8 minutes.

After capturing and immobilising a spider, the wasp either takes it to a temporary storage site or leaves it exposed on its back.

After laying, it pauses between 15 minutes and 2 hours before filling the burrow with fragments of vegetation varying from 5 to 56 mm in length which are rammed firmly into place with the wasp's abdomen.

It has shown itself to be adaptable and is common in suburban back yards, dunes, dry riverbeds, forest clearings, grasslands, and clay banks.

Nests can be found from sea level up to at least 1370 m, in various substrates, but often among boulders, and especially beneath flat stones and concrete, where it can gain access to cavities through cracks.