Yellow-banded Ichneumon Wasp (Echthromorpha agrestoria) - Male

A male yellow-banded ichneumon wasp. These males would often sit in the middle of leaves with their wings up, I am not sure if there is a reason for this or not. They always had to seek out females, so perhaps they do this just to have a rest?

Ichneumonidae sp.

labium wasp

Pseudofoenus extraneus - parasite of H. fijiensis

USP campus

Tiny parasitoid wasp

If Walt Disney designed a parasitoid wasp… it would look like this. ~3 mm long, found on a mock orange in Fairfield, Brisbane 25/3/15

Yellow-banded Ichneumon Wasp (Echthromorpha agrestoria)

I'm curious as to what signals this female was giving off, as I didn't see mating all that often and then all of a sudden two males go at once!

Encyrtidae sp. on flower wasp wings

This tiny wasp is on the wings of a larger flower wasp. Those fine spines on the hindwing of the flower wasp are used to keep the front and back wings together during flight! Something too small to normally see, imagine how small the 1 mm wasp's spines must be!

Hemipteran murderer

A hemipteran with its wasp prey (Pleistodontes froggatti). The pollinator of Moreton Bay figs

Fig wasp parasitoid and hyperparasitoid: Sycoscapter sp. 1 and Watshamiella sp. 1

What an amazing system! For three days in a row I had been photographing these parasitoids of the pollinating fig wasp (I assume). The green ones (Sycoscapter sp.) seem more numerous and more active earlier on in the day, while the yellow ones (Watshamiella sp.) are fewer, and more active as the day goes on. What is truly amazing is that they will follow a green parasitoid and wait for it to finish ovipositing, before ovipositing in the same spot itself. I'm not certain if this is because they are a hyperparasitoid of the Sycoscapter sp., or if they find this an easier way of locating a likely place to oviposit (making the Sycoscapter sp. do all the work). Regardless this is a truly amazing system, with so many trophic levels already at play, before you even get into predators, herbivores and other pests! Figs really are keystone species.

Fig wasp parasitoid and hyperparasitoid Sycoscapter sp. 1 and Watshamiella sp. 1

What an amazing system! For three days in a row I had been photographing these parasitoids of the pollinating fig wasp (I assume). The green ones (Sycoscapter sp.) seem more numerous and more active earlier on in the day, while the yellow ones (Watshamiella sp.) are fewer, and more active as the day goes on. What is truly amazing is that they will follow a green parasitoid and wait for it to finish ovipositing, before ovipositing in the same spot itself. I'm not certain if this is because they are a hyperparasitoid of the Sycoscapter sp., or if they find this an easier way of locating a likely place to oviposit (making the Sycoscapter sp. do all the work). Regardless this is a truly amazing system, with so many trophic levels already at play, before you even get into predators, herbivores and other pests! Figs really are keystone species.