Raspberry, bug eggs, egg parasite wasp

[rjlittlefield]

When I was picking raspberries yesterday, I noticed one that seemed a little odd. A closer look quickly revealed some bug eggs. I hauled the 10X loupe out of my pocket to take an even closer look, and saw that one of the eggs had a round hole in the top. No "hatch cover" attached, no sign of the nymph. Then I rolled the berry around a little bit, noticed an odd black lump underneath part of the raft of eggs, and took a closer look at that.

Lo and behold, the odd black lump turned out to be a small wasp. I'm guessing that it's an egg parasite, recently emerged from the one egg with a hole in it.

The wasp seems to be a bit mobility challenged. A few seconds after taking the first picture shown here, the wasp literally fell off the raft of eggs and fortuitously got snagged on one of the berry fibers a couple of millimeters below the raft. This may explain why it was still present on the raft of eggs, rather than having flown off to find a mate and some fresh food for the next generation.

Whole frame:


100% crop:


Whole frame:


100% crop


Not my usual sort of imagery, but I thought you might find this interesting!

Canon T1i, Canon MP-E 65 at 1X, f/8, Canon 580 EX II flash diffused through paper.

--Rik

Edit: fix typos

[JH]

Nice find, thanks for posting
/Jörgen

[mjkzz]

every time I see images like this on my favorite food/fruit, I would stay away from it for a while

[Troels]

Nice and interesting.

[AlxndrBrg]

Nice shots, the wasp belongs to the Platygastridae, classic egg parasitoids

[hayath]

So cool! lovely images, Rik!