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Project Noah Nature School
An unidentified caterpillar infected by some parasitic wasp.
Spotted on Aug 4, 2015
Submitted on Aug 5, 2015
3 Comments
Incrivel
Very nice. No way of telling for sure unless you rear the adults, but finding the cocoons between the host and the plant like that is typical of some small chalcid wasps in the family Eulophidae (Euplectrus or some of its related genera). Stick them in a jar and see what comes out - if they are small black and yellow wasps then probably Euplectrus. Having said that - the last time I reared out something that looked like that I got both Euplectrus and a bunch of smaller, metallic blue hyperparasitoids (in roughly equal numbers).
wow, very impressive!