Raspberry, bug eggs, egg parasite wasp

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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rjlittlefield
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Raspberry, bug eggs, egg parasite wasp

Post by 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.

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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
Last edited by rjlittlefield on Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

JH
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Post by JH »

Nice find, thanks for posting
/Jörgen
Jörgen Hellberg, my webbsite www.hellberg.photo

mjkzz
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Post by mjkzz »

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

Troels
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Post by Troels »

Nice and interesting.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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AlxndrBrg
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Post by AlxndrBrg »

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

hayath
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Post by hayath »

So cool! lovely images, Rik!

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