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Aqua tags wasp

?Brachymeria

Description:

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.

Habitat:

Suburban park on Eucalyptus bark.

Notes:

Just noticed rear legs and femurs with an 'arching' shape... reminiscent of some bees - Chalcidoidea... ? Antennae seem to have elbows !!?

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3 Comments

Leuba Ridgway
Leuba Ridgway 11 years ago

all that Turquoise - looks like an Aztec ! - very interesting..

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 11 years ago

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.

MartinL
MartinL 11 years ago

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?

Mark Ridgway
Spotted by
Mark Ridgway

Upper Ferntree Gully, Victoria, Australia

Spotted on May 28, 2012
Submitted on May 31, 2012

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