Pteromalus cf. apum
I found this small shiny wasp on a Fatsia japonica plant in my garden (Ipswich, VC25 East Suffolk, TM166450) at about 10:40 am on 2 July 2015. It was about 3mm long. After photographing the specimen I sent it to Hannes Baur at the Bern Natural History Museum in Switzerland. Hannes is an expert on this family of wasps. He examined it and determined it as a Pteromalus apum, although some characters were a bit less distinct than usual. He agreed that it should be recorded as Pteromalus cf. apum. These wasps are parasites of various flies, bees and butterflies. The photo was taken with my home-made automated stacking rig using a Canon T3i DSLR with a 10x Nikon microscope objective in front of a 200mm telephoto lens.
Pteromalus cf. apum
I found this small shiny wasp on a Fatsia japonica plant in my garden (Ipswich, VC25 East Suffolk, TM166450) at about 10:40 am on 2 July 2015. It was about 3mm long. After photographing the specimen I sent it to Hannes Baur at the Bern Natural History Museum in Switzerland. Hannes is an expert on this family of wasps. He examined it and determined it as a Pteromalus apum, although some characters were a bit less distinct than usual. He agreed that it should be recorded as Pteromalus cf. apum. These wasps are parasites of various flies, bees and butterflies. The photo was taken with my home-made automated stacking rig using a Canon T3i DSLR with a 10x Nikon microscope objective in front of a 200mm telephoto lens.