Hubert Polacek
Alien birth - Xenos vesparum male emergence
Rare moment to see, 15 years ago I thought that shot can be repeated like maybug flight photos.
At that time, infestated Polistes wasps were not so common in Central Europe but I was well directed by my friend, Prague entomologist Jakub Straka, to find them. Today, due to warming, they can be found easily. I can see these wasps every year and also had found some male parasite adults in our kids inflatable swiming pool. Male parasites are very agile fliers but they survive only few hours after emergence, they need to find female(s) very quickly. Anyway, after a few tens of minutes of searching they drop to the ground and die of exhaustion due to limited energy supplies.
But the emergence of male(s) is so quick process that I do not know anybody who documented this in nature. In captivity, both wasps and parasites can be confused and emergence often occurs around midnight like in this case (01:24 AM).
My rechargeable AA batteries were almost discharged, I took only 2 shots.
Link to the 2nd: TAKEN FEW SECONDS AFTER.
Link to the SPIEGEL article with their edited version, maybe the text is still there, too.
Alien birth - Xenos vesparum male emergence
Rare moment to see, 15 years ago I thought that shot can be repeated like maybug flight photos.
At that time, infestated Polistes wasps were not so common in Central Europe but I was well directed by my friend, Prague entomologist Jakub Straka, to find them. Today, due to warming, they can be found easily. I can see these wasps every year and also had found some male parasite adults in our kids inflatable swiming pool. Male parasites are very agile fliers but they survive only few hours after emergence, they need to find female(s) very quickly. Anyway, after a few tens of minutes of searching they drop to the ground and die of exhaustion due to limited energy supplies.
But the emergence of male(s) is so quick process that I do not know anybody who documented this in nature. In captivity, both wasps and parasites can be confused and emergence often occurs around midnight like in this case (01:24 AM).
My rechargeable AA batteries were almost discharged, I took only 2 shots.
Link to the 2nd: TAKEN FEW SECONDS AFTER.
Link to the SPIEGEL article with their edited version, maybe the text is still there, too.