Elegant Grazer. Wild Carrot Wasp, Gasteruption assectator, on Aruncus dioicus, Goat's Beard, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
They're amazingly elegant creatures, these 'Hunger Wasps', as they're called in Dutch. Presumably because they have such thin 'middles'. In 'assectator' the ovipositor is relatively short compared to those of its cousins; but no doubt it, too, can find larvae of other insects hiding in hollow plant stems or in wood segments and force them parasitically into 'half-living' food in which to deposit her eggs.
In the meantime, she's foraging on Goat's Beard, Aruncus dioicus.
Elegant Grazer. Wild Carrot Wasp, Gasteruption assectator, on Aruncus dioicus, Goat's Beard, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
They're amazingly elegant creatures, these 'Hunger Wasps', as they're called in Dutch. Presumably because they have such thin 'middles'. In 'assectator' the ovipositor is relatively short compared to those of its cousins; but no doubt it, too, can find larvae of other insects hiding in hollow plant stems or in wood segments and force them parasitically into 'half-living' food in which to deposit her eggs.
In the meantime, she's foraging on Goat's Beard, Aruncus dioicus.