Answer to the Monday Mystery

At the time I photographed this little scene (at Bell Smith Springs, Illinois) I was myself unsure of the drama playing out on the oak gall. I sent pictures to wasp expert Hege Vårdal to see if my preliminary guess of a pair of gall parasites was worth anything. Her reply:

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Sunday Night Movie: Attenborough’s Gall Wasps

From the amazing BBC series Life in the Undergrowth:

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Sunday Night Movie: the Body Invaders

From National Geographic’s In the Womb:

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Birth of a parasite

A young adult Comperia merceti, a parasitoid wasp in the family Encyrtidae, emerges from the egg case of its cockroach host. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D ISO 100, f/11, 1/200 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper

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Happy Halloween!

Braconid wasps attacking caterpillar – pumpkin by Lorenzo Rodriguez Urbana, Illinois

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A wasp in intricate detail…

Here are some shots from my training session this morning at the Beckman Institute‘s Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).  I haven’t used SEM for years- wow!  Great fun.  Click on each image to enlarge.

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You say dominula, I say dominulus

Meet the European Paper Wasp, Polistes dominulus.  Or is it Polistes dominula? Most biologists I know refer to this common Holarctic insect as P. dominulus, but I’ve just learned via Bugguide.net that the common spelling is a grammatical misunderstanding of the original latin: Explanation of Names Female ruler, lady, mistress: From Latin dominus- “lord, ruler, [...]

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Beware the Cow-Killer

Velvet ants- which aren’t really ants at all- are wingless wasps that parasitize ground-nesting bees. They are attractive insects, bearing bright colors and cute frizzy hair. But in case you are ever tempted to pick up one of those cuddly-looking little guys, let the photo above serve as a reminder about what lies at the [...]

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