Jan 28, 2022
@nulook4summa submitted: hello an id on both mama wasp and her ill fated quarry would be very much appreciated :))) seen on unceded Gullibul Country (Kyogle, NSW, Australia)
Ohhhh the drama!! Cool video. Love how you can see her bending her abdomen up to use her ovipositor on the caterpillar. The long child looks like an armyworm in Spodoptera, maybe a lawn armyworm moth. The wasp is an ichneumonid, so it's a parasitoid that uses its ovipositor to lay eggs into the bodies of other insect larvae, in this case the caterpillar. If she successfully laid eggs into it, it will eventually die, or at the very least not pupate successfully, since the larvae feed on the host's body. I'm thinking she's in the genus Metopius :)
