Ichneumon wasp
Ichneumonidae
Ichneumon wasp · Redwoods, Northern California · 24 April 2025
An ichneumon wasp on a buttercup on the floor of the redwood forest in April, doing nothing more sinister than drinking nectar. Ichneumons are everywhere there are insects to lay eggs in, which is everywhere; there are tens of thousands of species worldwide, and a damp forest floor in spring is full of them.
Thread-thin antennae longer than the body and iridescent, faintly violet wings mark the family, almost all of them parasitoids that lay their eggs in or on other insects. Darwin wrote that he could not persuade himself a benevolent God would have designed the ichneumons, which says something about how thoroughly the larvae eat their hosts from the inside.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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