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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies (Hymenoptera) » parasitic Apocrita » Chalcid Wasps (Chalcidoidea) » Aphelinidae » Marietta » Marietta timberlakei
Photo#237997
Chalcidoid wasp - Aphelinidae Marietta timberlakei - Marietta timberlakei - female
Copyright © 2008 Mark Fox

Chalcidoid wasp - Aphelinidae Marietta timberlakei - Marietta timberlakei - Female
Brazelier Island, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA
September 18, 2008
Size: 1mm
I believe this is an Aphelinid wasp in the genus Marietta, as that's the only genus I've found with these chocolate tiger stripes. But mine have extremely reduced wings, both male and female, which I haven't seen any reference to for this genus. Nevertheless, it is very cool looking.
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Contributed by Mark Fox on 4 November, 2008 - 11:51am
Last updated 7 November, 2008 - 12:58pm

Congrats
Great detective work, and it's a really cool wasp. I've been wondering what it would turn out to be! Also, pretty nice photos for a 1mm wasp!
… Will Chatfield-Taylor, 7 November, 2008 - 1:11pm login or register to post comments

 
Thanks!
For the past few weeks I've been sorting through vacuum samples from my marsh research site, and pretty much everything is 3mm or smaller. Some of my samples have more than 80 arthropod species!

I'm scrambling to get my data together for a talk at the EntSoc meeting in Reno, so I'm putting off most of the ID'ing, but this one was so snazzy that I couldn't wait to figure out what it was. I'll try to keep posting photos as i proceed.
… Mark Fox, 7 November, 2008 - 1:34pm login or register to post comments

I got it to species.
Only two Marietta have brachypterous forms, and I found the key to Marietta species by Hayat (1986) in which he described & illustrated M. timberlakei. The bands on the abdomen are pretty distinctive.

I'm pretty excited about this wasp. It is almost certainly hyperparasitic on parasitoids of scales!
… Mark Fox, 7 November, 2008 - 11:14am login or register to post comments

 
Wonderful -
to see one of these tiny wasps ID'd!

BTW, your link to the Marietta key appears to be broken - doesn't work on my browser anyway... oh - I see someone put it on the genus info page.
… Ken Schneider, 7 November, 2008 - 3:58pm login or register to post comments

 
Oops.
Sorry about that. If you click the link, than delete from the url everything preceding "flood", it should work. Or use the link from the genus info page.
… Mark Fox, 7 November, 2008 - 5:12pm login or register to post comments

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