#ensign wasp

[onenicebugperday]

@ants0nlogs submitted: Sorry for the poor quality photos :(( I've seen the bug everywhere but no body I know knows what this fella is. I found this guy in central Texas, but I've also seen them in Florida. Something I've notice is that their abdomens wiggle up and down as they walk, and they look like some sort of wasp but I don't see a stinger. Thanks!!

Looks like an ensign wasp! They're parasitoids of cockroach oothecae (egg cases).

[pencilbrony]

Contemplation

[drhoz]

#2119 - Fam. Evaniidae - Hatchet Wasp

AKA ensign wasps, nightshade wasps, hatchet wasps, or cockroach egg parasitoid wasps. The family name is derived from the genus Evania, itself from the Greek euanios, meaning 'taking trouble easily'. I have no idea why that's appropriate.

All sufficiently well-studied Evaniids are parasitoids of cockroach eggcases, but since only 16 of the known 400 species are sufficiently well-studied, that doesn't mean much. Evania appendigaster and Prosevania fuscipes are both now found worldwide, because they're parasites of worldwide pest cockroaches.

Before 1939 the Evaniidae was a wastebin taxon for any oddly-shaped parasitic wasp, and the infra-order 'Parasitica' wasn't much better. Happily, the Evaniidae, Gasteruptiidae, and Aulacidae have a pretty good fossil record going back to the Middle Jurassic, although they're much less common since the late Cretaceous when the Ichneumonidae and Braconidae took over.

[wedontneedfeatherstofly]

Evaniella semaeoda

[arthropodenjoyer]

this little guy showed up on my house today

it is a blue eyed ensign wasp (Evania appendigaster)

these wasps parasite cockroach eggs, so having them around is pretty neat

[dailydegurechaff]

Today's Daily Degurechaff is… too bad, so sad

[ratcandy]

Fucked up bug fact of the day?

(photo cred)

This is an Ensign Wasp from the family Evaniidae. Like most itty bitty wasps, they are parasitoids, with their main targets being cockroaches.

And no, this is not the similarly cool and fun wasp that does the zombie roach thing, that would be jewel wasps, instead these guys go for The Babies.

A mother ensign wasp will find a roach ootheca (fancy name for egg case) and stab her ovipositor into it to lay egg. Then, the baby wasp larva will be born within the egg case, and it will begin eating all the eggs inside. This is extra freaky because the first instar of the larva has fucking teeth (serrated mandibles; theorized for use in cutting through the eggs):

(photo taken from the research paper linked above - The paper also mentions that if two larva end up laid within the same egg case, only one will make it to adulthood, because one will ALWAYS eat the other. Awesome)

Could you imagine how Fucked Up this would be on a human scale. Sorry maybe don't imagine that it's a little gross. But yea. Ensign wasps <3 They mean a lot to me

[patchworkmelody]

Some bugs :)

Erysim (small wasp)

Gray (Silvering bee soldier)

Bertie (deliverybee)

Poppy (beast tamer acrobat ant) (and an aphid)

[pleistocene-pride]

Evania appendigaster better known as the blue-eyed ensign wasp, is a species of wasp in the family Evaniidae, which was originally native to southern asia but has spread throughout much of the worlds tropics, subtropics, and temperate regions and can be now found on every continent barring Antarctica. With adults reaching upwards of .6 inches (15mm) in total length, it is one of the larger ensign wasps and can be distinguished from other species by the wide separation of the first and second sections of the coxa, the segment of the leg that attaches to the body. It sports large wings, and its body is black in color with contrasting blue eyes. The abdominal petiole, the constricted stalk that holds the posterior section of the abdomen, or gaster, is attached high on the body. The gaster is laterally compressed and oval to nearly triangular in shape, held in a flaglike fashion and resembling an ensign, hence the name. This wasp reproduces by laying eggs into egg cases, or oothecae, of cockroaches. The mother wasp sneaks into a cockroach nest then upon finding the eggs, drills a hole into them with her ovipositor and lays a single one of her eggs inside each cockroach egg capsule. The wasp eggs then hatch are there larvae feed upon the cockroach larvae, growing and developing through 5 instars emerging from the now empty egg capsule as an adult. As adults blue-eyed ensign wasps feed primarily upon plants such as parsley and fennel and may live upwards of 3 weeks.

[pcktknife]

everyday I learn about new bugs against my will

[onenicebugperday]

@undeadrabbit submitted: Was eating lunch when this lil fella suddenly appeared. No idea why, but they chilled next to me for the whole time. (Location is [removed]; please remove location!)

Incredible creature. It's an ensign wasp! Probably a blue-eyed ensign wasp. They parasitize cockroach eggs :)

[donein30minutes]

Bird Dive Kick! 10.7.22

Done in 30 minutes

[addicted2wasps]

Weird Wasp....Tuesday?

I was getting kind of down in the dumps about not having any ideas for comics for a while, but I just had to find an excuse to draw an Evaniid today. The other two came into the picture afterward. Sometimes, it can be quite a challenge to come up with an idea or scenario that incorporates some kind of joke or pun related to certain insects, especially wasps.

I'm glad this one worked out. I suppose it would have made more sense to draw an ootheca in the picture, although I am curious about wether the ootheca "appears" externally after mating? I've seen photos of female Periplaneta americana without oothecae, either that, or I'm blind, lol. I welcome any advice or corrections!

The original accompanied caption:

When cockroaches are on the menu... Ampulex compressa and Evania appendigaster are both cockroach parasitoids. A. compressa is known for "zombifying" cockroaches, by stinging them in the brain and then dragging them into the wasp's burrow by the antennae. An egg is then laid on the host. E. appendigaster, aka Ensign wasps, parasitizes roach oothecae by laying eggs into the cockroach egg cases. They also distinctively have vivid blue eyes.

This will be an interesting match! Who will win!? 🤔 😆

(Also, if rock-paper-scissors doesn't require hyphens, I can easily remove them).

[apsciencebydan]

Ensign Wasps, now in 4* convenient sizes, for all your biocontrol needs!

Ensign wasps started appearing within the past few days, and I'm happy about this.

(The last shot is one of the medium sized species, seen today. The others are from last year)

[flame-shadow]

some anthro experimentation using my and a couple friends' bug fables characters.

[the rhinocerous beetle is Barky who belongs to me while the ensign wasp and the carpenter ant belong to friends]

[ratcandy]

Words cannot describe how mystified yet simultaneously outraged I am by the bug diversity where I am now living . Because this amount of diversity would have been GREAT when I had a CLASS where I needed 100 families in a COLLECTION for a GRADE