Chalcid wasp

Thanks again John. Finer mist net this season then.

Encyrtid wasps are VERY common in Aus - just so small that they don't get seen all that often. There are many species associated with lerp psyllids on eucalypts. Only a small group of them display polyembryony - but it is a fascinating phenomenon.

Just read more interesting stuff about these...

" Some species exhibit a remarkable developmental phenomenon called "polyembryony", in which a single egg multiplies clonally in the host and produces large numbers of identical adult wasps. Even more remarkably, some of the larvae are larger than the others and act in a similar way to the "soldiers" of eusocial insects, attacking any other wasp larvae already in the body of the host, and dying without reproducing ("altruism"). " - wiki
Yours seems the only Aus spotting.

Fascinating find Martin.

Thank you for the fascinating information John.
I am pleased that it creates some interest to you.
While it doesn't look like a beast to me, I am sure the mealy bugs disagree. I saw no soft bodied hemipterans but numerous species of Chrysomelidae beetles nearby.

My colleague got back to me (wonders of electronic communication).
"It appears to be Vosleria australia (Girault). You will find info about it in Noyes 1978 on Callipteroma and on the Universal Chalcidoidea Database. A nice beast and not uncommon in Oz."
The link to the Universal Chalcidoidea Database is
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/r...
Unfortunately not too much information on this little beast (not unusual for chalcids). It is a mealybug parasitoid.

Thank you for your comments John. It was almost too small to see.

Fantastic. This is a chalcid wasp (Superfamily Chalcidoidea) in the family Encyrtidae.
These can be amongst the most interesting and spectacular of the chalcids morphologically (just unfortunately too small for most of us to ever come across them). They can have a wide variety of hosts - although one large subgroup of them specialises on mealybugs as hosts.