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?Brachymeria
Just when I thought there would be no more arthropods until springtime this tiny blue-tagged wasp starting working over the bark of a large eucalyptus. About 5mm long.
Suburban park on Eucalyptus bark.
Just noticed rear legs and femurs with an 'arching' shape... reminiscent of some bees - Chalcidoidea... ? Antennae seem to have elbows !!?
Spotted on May 28, 2012
Submitted on May 31, 2012
3 Comments
all that Turquoise - looks like an Aztec ! - very interesting..
I guess it makes sense in at least a couple of ways. - carnivorous species are primarily opportunists and choose weakened creatures in preference to doing hard or dangerous work - also maybe they have the energy or metabolisms to push on into colder conditions when many vegos have slowed right down. It might not be 'outliving' exactly but more a population levels thing ie. carni numbers go up after more vegos become available. A bit like the way the numbers of spiders grew weeks after the insects had their good days last summer. I was really impressed with the energy of this little guy. I suppose he might have just been panicking that there was nothing much to eat.
Nice wasp. Here's a theory for you Mr. Bee. Carnivorous invertebrates outlive the vegetarian ones. My thought was prompted by this probable hibernator. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/113... Mantids live for several years. What do you think?