As the year comes to a close I wish to inundate you all with some of the coolest, prettiest or strangest wasp photos uploaded to iNat this year, inspired by @cathartidae's wauce blasts

Gonatopus and liopterid

Gasteruption and Cameronella

Eumenine and Smicromorpha doddi

Ammophila wrightii and Stilbula

Pelecinus polyturator and Chrysis viridula

Tracheliodes curvitarsis and Oxyscelio

Orasema and Apoica pallens

Scelionids and Feron kingi

Neotriadomerus and Phlebopenes

Euplectromorpha variegata and chalcids

Antron douglasii and Stylaclista

Synergus and Obenbergerella

Elasmosoma and Polistes dominula

Odontophotopsis melicausa and Stizus texanus

Stypiura and Radumeris tasmaniensis

snidley whiplash ass animal

assorted very small wasps i saw at work last week

A bizarrely proportioned wasp that seems to think it's a praying mantis, that I spotted investigating the trunk of a eucalyptus. The name means 'of oak trees' because that's where the first species was collected.

Over 242 species in this genus have been described worldwide, and it's quite well represented in amber too - Baltic, Dominican and Burmese ambers have all preserved species. The family Dryinidae has nearly 2000 species, with many wingless, but all are ectoparasitoids, usually of planthoppers in the families Cicadellidae, Delphacidae, Flatidae and Membracidae. The weird forelegs are used to seize the victim before they can jump away. The larva soon grows large enough to protrude from the body, and grows a hardened sac called a "thylacium" for protection. When the host eventually succumbs the wasp larva leaves the body and spins a cocoon elsewhere.

This particular one is remarkably large for a Dryinid - almost 2cm long. That seriously limits the kind of planthopper it could be parasitising around Wagga Wagga - I suspect the larger Eurybrachids are the only option.

dryinid wasps are parasitoids of planthoppers and look utterly preposterous

10/20/23