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Dryinid larva parasitizing the host hopper

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Description

This hopper nymph is about 5mm long. When i shoot it at night, i thought it has damaged wings. When view on my computer, I thought it was a tiny snail on it's body. Later i was told it was actually a solitary wasp larva! How cool!

Quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryinida…
The Dryinidae are a family of hymenopteran insects, with about 1,400 described species found worldwide. These are solitary wasps whose larvae are parasitoids on other insects. The only known hosts are Hemiptera, especially leafhoppers.
Adults of these insects are generally fairly small, to a maximum length of 10 mm. Males are usually fully winged, but females are often completely wingless and closely resemble ants.

The eggs are injected into the host using a sharp ovipositor and the larva spends its early stages feeding internally on the host, but when larger, it starts to protrude from the abdomen of the host and develops a hardened sac-like "case" to protect its vulnerable body while continuing to feed on the host, which is eventually killed.
Image size
960x640px 286.05 KB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Shutter Speed
1/160 second
Aperture
F/16.0
Focal Length
100 mm
ISO Speed
125
Date Taken
Oct 15, 2013, 1:26:05 AM
Sensor Size
6mm
© 2013 - 2024 melvynyeo
Comments8
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Xquid's avatar

"Oh, don't mind me... I'm just gonna burrow into your side here and eat you from the inside. You can't scream for help? And even if you could no one would have the ability to care or help? Well, why would you scream? I'm going to eat around all your vital organs. See? I want you to live a long juicy life. I'm sorry... it's a little hard to eat around every nerve ending, though. But, you're the strong one. I need you. You got a friend in me... er... I am the friend in you. What do you say? Friends? That giant mammal with the incomprehensible device observing all this, isn't going to pluck me off. A deity compared to us. He knows exactly what is happening to you... and let's it happen. He's not your friend. He'll walk off in a minute. Deep deep in the dark dark jungle... and it'll be just us again.

Mm! Those bright light did distract me for a bit... but back to it... this might sting a little.... again... sorry."


*single tear rolls from red unblinking nymph eye*


Bugs Life II