Eggs? on poplar leaf - Pediobius Barrie, Simcoe, Ontario, Canada July 29, 2006 Size: 2mm
I checked on these things last night in the wee small hours, and found two of the eggs?pupae? with a hole in the thorax area, empty, and two of the most exquisite little insects I have ever seen running around in circles on top of the rest. These little guys look like some sort of wasp - about 2 mm long, the head and thorax a bright metallic plum colour, and the abdomen a metallic green.
I put the leaf under the microscope and watched as several more emerged. One of the first two wandered off across my drafting table and subsequently succumbed to something on its surface, but the other kept circling the remaining eggs. It would stop at the ones trying to chew their way out, looking down into the hole, antennae pointing straight down at the head of the emerging insect, totally motionless except for a slight quiver of the antennae and an occasional rapid brushing of its hind legs across its abdomen. At first it would only stop for 5 or 10 seconds before resuming circling, but as the hole became larger it would stay longer and longer. It took the emerging insect two hours to chew its way out, toward the end of that time the circling one stayed motionless for up to 5 minutes at a time.
As soon as the emerging insect managed to get its head through the hole, the one who had been waiting and watching grabbed it and dragged it out of the egg and away from the group of eggs, where it appeared to try to mate with it. The new one was definitely larger, so I'm thinking the first was a male, and the second a female?
Unfortunately, though I have a decent microscope, I have no way of taking photos with it, so these pictures don't do the little creatures justice. I'm thinking some sort of parasitic wasp - but do they come that small?
I do have two specimens I can check under the microscope for any details that might help with an ID - the two that wandered onto my work surface became disoriented, started loosing their coordination, and died in a matter of 15 minutes or so - probably traces of paint and spray fixatives that didn't agree with the little dudes.
Images of this individual: tag all Contributed by Simone Ross on 29 July, 2006 - 12:39pm Last updated 13 September, 2020 - 8:14am |