Golden Walking Dead, Pt. 2 - _TNY_6430
I discovered this very small (2-3mm) insect outside the house as late in the season as November 10th.
At first, I wasn't really sure what this was, but since it was moving very slowly, and I'm not exactly spoiled for subjects to shoot in November, it was a given shoot.
Since then, I've learned that this is a very unfortunate aphid of some sort and the reason for the gold/bronze colour and the severely enlarged abdomen is quite gruesome.
Sometime about 12 days before this, a small parasitic wasp in the Aphidius genus had found this aphid and injected one of it's eggs inside. The egg then hatches and the wasp larvae then feeds on the aphid host from within before pupating, still inside the aphid which of course will die. When emerging, the adult wasp will cut an symmetrical hole at the bottom end and will be ready to mate and locate new aphids to continue the cycle.
Aphidius wasps are commonly used as biological pest control in greenhouses and plant nurseries. Apparently they locate aphids based on the scent of the aphid's honey dew and how the infested plants smell and a single female can lay as many as 300 eggs inside aphids.
There are 27 different Aphidius species in Sweden and it would have been possible to "hatch" this one to identify it, but like I said, I had no idea what this was when I found it.
Part 1 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/53352126202/
Golden Walking Dead, Pt. 2 - _TNY_6430
I discovered this very small (2-3mm) insect outside the house as late in the season as November 10th.
At first, I wasn't really sure what this was, but since it was moving very slowly, and I'm not exactly spoiled for subjects to shoot in November, it was a given shoot.
Since then, I've learned that this is a very unfortunate aphid of some sort and the reason for the gold/bronze colour and the severely enlarged abdomen is quite gruesome.
Sometime about 12 days before this, a small parasitic wasp in the Aphidius genus had found this aphid and injected one of it's eggs inside. The egg then hatches and the wasp larvae then feeds on the aphid host from within before pupating, still inside the aphid which of course will die. When emerging, the adult wasp will cut an symmetrical hole at the bottom end and will be ready to mate and locate new aphids to continue the cycle.
Aphidius wasps are commonly used as biological pest control in greenhouses and plant nurseries. Apparently they locate aphids based on the scent of the aphid's honey dew and how the infested plants smell and a single female can lay as many as 300 eggs inside aphids.
There are 27 different Aphidius species in Sweden and it would have been possible to "hatch" this one to identify it, but like I said, I had no idea what this was when I found it.
Part 1 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/53352126202/