Septic Fig Parasitoid Wasp

Description:

Cutting open a Septic Fig fruit (Ficus septica), this tiny wasp pop out from inside. Only at 4mm and with more than half of its body is its ovipositor. This wasp use its long ovipositor to drill through the skin of the fruit to deposit the eggs inside. There are different kinds of fig wasps that inhabits figs and this one is not the beneficial pollinating fig wasp but rather it is a parasite. A Pteromalidae species, a parasitoid which lay eggs on other fig wasps inside the fruit.

Habitat:

Spend the first half of its life inside the Septic fig (Ficus septica) when young and once left the fruit, it will see other fruits to continue the life cycle. Septic fig are abundant everywhere in disturbed areas like city and secondary forest.

Notes:

The Septic fig where this wasp is associated with: https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/11... Fig pollination is very complex as it needs tiny fig wasps to pollinate the inner flowers but there also many fig wasps that do not pollinate and are parasites instead.