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Friday, 3 July 2015

Hawk-moth parasite

I had this large wasp emerge from a Lime Hawk-moth pupa yesterday, collected as a larva last July - any ideas as to species? It is over 3 cm long, including antennae! Also just seen my first Hummingbird Hawk-moth on my garden Valerians here in Aylesbury. Not brilliant pictures, i know, but it was very fast!  Dave Maunder

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2 comments:

  1. Dave Wilton3 July 2015 at 21:35

    Hi Dave, as you probably know, there are as many ichneumon species as there are moth species. I know nothing about them and my vast garden list of about a dozen is entirely down to IDs kindly provided by Gavin Broad at the NHM. However, in the book "Insects of Britain & Ireland" by Paul Brock there's an image of a male Amblyjoppa fuscipennis which looks quite like your specimen and is said to be a parasitoid of Small Elephant Hawk larvae. Might be worth Googling further, but don't expect to get a definitive ID without recourse to an expert like Gavin!

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  2. Peter Hall6 July 2015 at 10:23

    Gavin says: "That’s Callajoppa cirrogaster, a fairly frequent parasitoid of sphingids"

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