Tuesday 20 July 2010

Ruby-tailed wasp (Chrysis ignita) and Common Earwig (Forficula auricularia)

This is a very beautiful Ruby-tailed wasp that really does have a metallic green head and thorax with a metallic red abdomen - all of which flash in the sunshine.  Although the adults eat pollen and nectar, they lay their eggs on the larvae of the burrow-dwelling Red mason bee - which then eat their hosts alive.  Not very nice



Earwigs are, extremely buggy bugs - this is a view of the underside, or ventral surface as it is called, of one.  Earwigs are very good mothers - not only do they look after their eggs once they have laid them, they look after the baby earwigs once they have hatched - looking like tiny versions of the adults.  Earwigs eat pretty much everything - they are omnivorous, which probably explains why you can find them pretty much everywhere!!

These were just some of the great creatures we caught during the Bug hunt today


6 comments:

  1. There appears to be just one previous record of the ruby-tailed wasp on Islay, interestingly also from Port Charlotte, back in 1986. Doesn't mean to say it isn't common and widespread, just that no-one's bothered to note it!

    Malcolm

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    1. We found a ruby-tailed wasp up by Bolsa on the Rhuvaal side.... this was around 2 years ago.... more widespread than most would think!

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  2. One of the consequent benefits of the blog seems to be that it is encouraging us to not only look things up - but also to write things down!! I am sure that this wasp is quite common here, as you suspect, but simply under-recorded. Very like my earlier record of Water crickets - although I have checked the little pond several times since and they have now disappeared...

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