I just finished making a new tiny diffuser and headed outside. This amazing girl was sitting on a mango and posing nicely. Despite having my cheapest most underpowered flash on my camera, I'm still pretty happy about the result. This tiny wasp was probably looking for fruit fly larvae.
More photos here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/353566360
#Nature #Photography #Diachasmimorpha #Opiinae #Braconidae #Hymenoptera #SriLanka #Parasitoid #Insects #InsectInteraction
Dinocampus coccinellae.
Nature is both fantastic and cruel.
https://blogg.forskning.no/insektokologene/verdens-darligst-betalte-barnevakt/1688705
Quite pleased with this shot of an Urosigalphus braconid wasp I got in central Austin today. I suspect the wasps are emerging from live oak acorns, having parasitized the grubs acorn weevils.
Not many live photos exist of this genus, it seems.
Here's a wasp species I'm guessing hasn't been photographed alive more than a handful of times.
In the field I thought it might be a microgastrine braconid. But it's Cardiochiles explorator, in a different subfamily. From Van Horn, Texas.
Down by the lake the other day, my favourite willow was positively covered with large purple aphids making their way up the trunk—and the air was alive with swarms of tiny parasitoid wasps (family Braconidae) preying on them! Here is one injecting an egg into an aphid. The aphids become swollen husks as the wasp hatches, feeds, and pupates, eventually cutting a neat hole and emerging as an adult, ready to continue the cycle. I have never seen the wasps emerging but hope to one day.
#bugstodon #insects #wasps #aphids #parasitism • #Hymenoptera #Braconidae #Aphidiinae
Some drama in the garden. A hairstreak caterpillar sits alive but severely weakened on a batch of developing parasitic wasps that had been living inside it but emerged to pupate.
Ben S
Alex Wild
Gabor G
Quim Morató
Colin Purrington
neville park