#lycaenid

These two may be related!

Not in a familial sense, no. These are related in the sense that there may be something that they both have in common! Butterfly larvae! 

Let me explain. I had noticed that the red Ichneumonoidea wasp seemed to hang around the same tree a lot. Every time I was there, it was there and protecting the tree with gusto! It has chased me off after I tried photographing it and this is the best I have of it. So I took note of the fact that it seemed to be REALLY attached to this tree. 

Yesterday, while looking at jumping spiders, I noticed this ant that looked like a beautiful jewel climbing this tree… then another. It seemed that they had created a nest in the tree that extended up the entire trunk. The wasp was very eagerly hanging out at the nest that these beautiful green ants (Rhytidoponera metallica) had established. 

“So how are these related?” You wonder? Well, upon trying to find out what the wasp was, I discovered that it likes to lay its larvae in one chosen species or similar, larvae from certain butterflies. A type of caterpillar that pretends that it is an ant larvae and gets taken care of by a nest. They’ve been known to make noises similar to the queen ant to be protected by the nest, smell like an ant, eat the ant larvae and even get protection from the ants as it leaves the nest when it becomes a butterfly. 

Initially, upon reading it, I thought that it may have been a larvae from the Phengaris Rebeli or similar, which are endangered, but I could only find articles about them being adopted by the Myrmica ants and not the green ants. 

One article was written by a professor at a university and I asked him about it and he said that it was possible, considering the unknown that comes with bugs and thought that the question I’d asked was very interesting. While he did not know for sure, he did send me a link to a page about the Lycaenid butterflies, and they too get looked after by the ants by providing a substance for the ants, like a sort of bribe. 

So now I have questions because while the Phengaris get adopted INTO the nest to be looked after in the nursery, the Lycaenid stays on the outside of the nest and pupates there. The wasp was hovering around the nest as if there was something inside which makes me think that it is a larvae that gets adopted. I have seen the Lycaenid pupae around on the same property though… I am still reading up on all of this as it is very interesting! 

Or I am mega-wrong and it just likes ants or the ants share a space with an entirely unrelated insect that the wasp is after… Either way, I learned all about butterflies whose larvae manipulate ants and the predators that hunt them and I learned about an endangered species! Secretly, I kind of hope that if there is a Phengaris in that nest, that it is a sign that they get adopted by the green ants too and that could be vital information that’d be beneficial to its protection! How exciting could that be! It is all just a big guess as this stage though… 

I will be keeping a very close eye on the nest! 

FUN FACT: The long, black “stinger”-looking things on the ends of its tail has no sting, but it is used to reach into wood or folded leaves to reach the prey that it will lay its larvae into.