THIS FEMALE Ichneumon wasp was climbing up the studio window so I caught her in a bug box, photographed then released her and drew from one of the photographs.
As you can see from the scale on the base of the bug box (left) she is about 1cm long with an ovipositor that’s as long again.
She seemed to be a wasp with a mission, busily pacing up the window, pausing only to bend the long ovipositor over for cleaning. I can’t remember now if she held it bent beneath her or over her back. I think the latter.
Just in case there’s anyone out there who can identify the species for me, I’ve included this close up of the wing, as I understand the wing venation is one of the keys to identity. I wasn’t able to take a decent side view.
The nearest I can see in the book is the Large Ichneumon Lampronata setosas but that is getting on for twice the size. This looks like a close relative. The Large Ichneumon uses its long ovipositor to drill into wood to lay its eggs on the larvae of the Goat Moth.
Update; Thank you to Graham for suggesting Rhyssa persuasoria as the species. This is sometimes known as the Giant Ichneumon but a female would normally be two to four times as long as the specimen I drew.
Colour too much towards the golden in this photograph. It’s more the washed out pale brown of a dried leaf or grass stem. x9 Olympus Tough super-macro setting.
THIS MICRO MOTH lives up to its name as it’s just 11 millimetres in length. It’s the kind of little brown moth that my mum always used to identify as a ‘clothes moth’ but I guess that this one had a vegetarian diet as a caterpillar. There aren’t as many woolly jumpers available in these days of acrylic yarns, so my mum’s old adversary might now be an endangered species. It certainly would be if she had anything to do with it.
I’ve got no intention of attempting to identify such as nondescript moth (although there is now a new field guide, illustrated by Richard Lewington, so that has become at least a possibility) but because I can’t come up with a name that doesn’t mean that I can’t take a closer look at it. By the way, I found it lying dead on the coffee table, so no clues to its natural habitat; garden, woodland, meadow or even pond perhaps.
It isn’t so nondescript if you’re able to zoom in closer. I’ve taken these photographs using my Traveler USB microscope (except for the macro photograph, left).
There’s so much about this moth that reminds me an owl, although its beady eyes and the beak-like appearance of its proboscis (right) remind me more of a frigate bird!
Actually that ‘beak’ has an extra twist at the end; its more like one of those ‘blowout’ party popper novelties.
This moth might be the original little brown job but switch on the LED light of my microscope and its wings glitter like a costume in a West End musical.
The feathery edges of the wings remind me of the soft edges of an owl’s wing feather but I can’t believe that the moth would need them for the same reason; to soften the sound of its wingbeats. Perhaps having those feathery extensions swishing away behind it as it flies might to some small extent muffle the sonar echo that a bat relies on to locate its prey.
Zooming in even closer, using the 60x setting on the microscope, it’s possible to see the individual scales, like tiles on the moth’s wing.
The depth of field at this magnification makes it impossible for me to get both the wing and its feathery margin in focus and when I zoom in to 200x it’s even more difficult however this blurry image (right) does pick out some of the detail on the scales. They appear to have parallel ribbing or surface markings.
Lepidoptera, the order of insects that butterflies and moths belong to, is from the Greek lepid pteron, meaning ‘scale wing’.
THIS FEMALE Ichneumon wasp was climbing up the studio window so I caught her in a bug box, photographed then released her and drew from one of the photographs.
Just in case there’s anyone out there who can identify the species for me, I’ve included this close up of the wing, as I understand the wing venation is one of the keys to identity. I wasn’t able to take a decent side view.
