The first ichneumon was found molesting cinnabar moth caterpillars feasting on our ragwort - parasitoid and host.
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| Barylypa propugnator and Tyria jacobaeae on Jacobaea vulgaris |
The second (very much smaller one) was found on nasturtium and is a parasitoid of aphidophagous hoverflies and there are plenty of black-fly on the nasturtiums to satisfy a small army of hoverfly larvae.
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| Diplazon laetatorius male |
This wasp is not an ichneumon wasp, it is a Gasteruptid of the family
Gasteruptidae in the super-family
Evanioidea, as opposed to being in the family
Ichneumonidae in the super-family
Ichneumonoidea! It does not inject eggs into its hosts. Its hosts are solitary bees and wasps and it detects bee grubs in their burrows or bee hotels and injects an egg into the cell. The result is the same - the egg hatches and consumes pollen and nectar from the cell and then the bee grub so the grub is eaten from the outside rather than from the inside.
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| Gasteruption jaculator which means stomach erupting javelin thrower! |
I have found some really beautiful insects recently - an hemipteran with amazing antennae, an orthopteran with amazing antennae, and a very common but no less beautifully antennaed lepidopteran. See below.
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The orthopteran - Long-winged conehead nymph - Conocephalus fuscus
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| The lepidopteran - Common blue butterfly - Polyommatus icarus |
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| The hemipteran - Heterotoma planicornis |
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