Parasitic Wasp. But which one? (spoiler alert, someone already identified this as Acrotaphus wiltii). I suspect this is an ichneumonid. But which one? We know little about the identity of this group despite the fact that there are over 700 species of ichneumonids known from the tiny tiny state of Maryland. This particular specimen came from Beltsville Agriculture Research Center. As a group these non-stinging wasps lay their eggs in or on other insects (another spoiler alert - orb spiders) ...almost always their larvae (another spoiler alert. adult spiders in this case). They are picky about their food/hosts and craft clever strategies to find and deposit their baby aliens. The host group, of course, is not into this and develops countermeasures and they both go down paths of more and more nuanced life together, by no measure a marriage, but more of a insecticidal détente where a certain proportion of the host's babies are given up to the wasp, and the wasp doesn't parasitize all the host babies....because if they did its end of the line for them being so specialized and their lives so intertwined such so (note: never use of the word "so" this much) that the wasp must, in a way, support the life of its host all the while letting its children eat some of them alive (spoiler alert, like I said in this case its all about adult spiders) . There is a lesson here for us humans...but it escapes me what that lesson is (other than not useing "so" so often and not over generalizing about ichneumons (they hate that)).
