#evaniidae

My favourite wasps I have seen this summer

A lovely little chalcid that got stuck in some water and walked around a petri dish I was holding while she dried off

The gorls! Cynips divisa and C. longiventris on the same tree, featuring some bonus Macrodiplosis pustularis midge galls

Chalcids chalcids chalcids (first one is an encyrtid)

A cute ichneumonoid that showed up for my birthday picnic, and some Chrysis viridula hanging around potter wasp nests

A strange one which I think may be an ichneumonoid but I haven't seen any others with pitted carapaces like that, and my good friend the red legged spider wasp (Episyron rufipes). Their strength knows no bounds

Three Nemka viduata. I saw velvet ants for the first ever time this year and ended up seeing quite a few before going back home, including this male which I happened to catch near a female. What a wild size difference and what gorgeous wasps

Two more new families for me, an ensign wasp (Evaniidae) and a bembicid, although this Bembecinus is actually the second I found

My pfp, an emerald cuckoo wasp (Stilbum cyanurum) I just barely got a photo of (I'm as surprised as you are that it's identifiable to species) and one of the largest wasps I've seen, Sphex pruinosus

Two potter wasps, a Eumenes sp. (probably mediterranneus) and Delta unguiculatum

A carrot wasp (Gasteruption sp.) with a shorter tail than the ones I'm used to, fittingly sipping away at a carrot species, and my first beewolf (Philanthus triangulum), which I've been hoping to find for a long time, they're fascinating

A eupelmid I thought looked interesting and a classic wauce lauste in the sauce (Vespula germanica)

Bighead baby. A crabronid that looks about as ridiculous as all crabronids and a European hornet (Vespa crabro) going to town on an ash cicada (Cicada orni), which freaked my family out

A blue-eyed ensign wasp (Evania appendigaster; Family: Evaniidae) I caught recently and pointed today.

Wasp ID - PA, USA:

Hello, yes, this is an ensign wasp, most likely the Blue-eyed Ensign Wasp (Evania appendigaster), family Evaniidae.

AKA ensign wasps, nightshade wasps, hatchet wasps, or cockroach egg parasitoid wasps. The family name is derived from the genus Evania, itself from the Greek euanios, meaning 'taking trouble easily'. I have no idea why that's appropriate.

All sufficiently well-studied Evaniids are parasitoids of cockroach eggcases, but since only 16 of the known 400 species are sufficiently well-studied, that doesn't mean much. Evania appendigaster and Prosevania fuscipes are both now found worldwide, because they're parasites of worldwide pest cockroaches.