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Post by T.C. on May 30, 2018 8:19:21 GMT -8
I went to pin this queen ant 24 hours after it's death, but it turns out it's death was caused by parasites taking over it's body. The video is nasty, but have any of you guys seen anything like this before in your insect collections?
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Post by eurytides on May 30, 2018 15:31:04 GMT -8
Never seen this. Daaaaamn. Are you going to wait for them to pupate and eventually ID the parasites?
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Post by T.C. on May 30, 2018 15:41:00 GMT -8
Never seen this. Daaaaamn. Are you going to wait for them to pupate and eventually ID the parasites? Thats the plan. |
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Post by eurytides on May 30, 2018 16:36:21 GMT -8
Keep us posted! Gross but interesting.
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Post by joee30 on May 30, 2018 17:27:57 GMT -8
Wonder if they are wasps of some sort, or Phorid fly larvae?
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Post by exoticimports on Jun 1, 2018 4:36:17 GMT -8
I had the habit of eating live orthoptera until in Ecuador i shot alcohol into a big mean katydid and all these long worms crawled out.
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leptraps
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Post by leptraps on Jun 1, 2018 5:29:52 GMT -8
They could be an Ichneumonid, there are some extremely small Ichneumonid wasp. However, I have never seen parasitic wasps or flies emerge from an adult. I do know one family of Ichneumonid wasps lay there eggs on specific species of plants. Those plants are also the host for Lepidoptera. The caterpillars eat the plant along with the egg of the wasp. Once in the gut the larva emerges from the egg and consumes the body of the larva.
There are some very interesting life histories in the insect world. This would make a great thread. Who is going to start one?
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Post by foxxdoc on Jun 7, 2018 11:22:06 GMT -8
wouldn"t the larvae stay with the body and pupate ? something forced them out ? death of the host ? I assume none of the larvae survived.
tom
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jun 8, 2018 0:26:58 GMT -8
Some parasites pupate inside the host body and then cut a hole in the dead pupal skin as adults, but many others break out of the host and then either crawl away to pupate or spin a cocoon and pupate on the outside of the host body in a mass of maybe 30 or so cocoons. It is unusual for a parasitooid to emerge from an adult insect, normally it is either a larva or pupa.
Adam.
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