Ichneumon Species-New Find!
Daniel,
In addition to the email i sent earlier, i hope you received it. I was out taking more pics of bugs today, in my yard in Houston, Texas and i happened to catch a strange little, very little, bug hitching a ride on an Ichneumons antennae. I thought it was just a piece of skin or something while taking pics. I didn’t notice the little bug til i got them on the computer. What is this lil bug?
Tracy Palmer

Hi Tracy,
It takes quite some time to plod through all of a given day’s emails, and many do not get read. This is a marvelous set of images. They depict a Pseudoscorpion hitching a ride, a practice known as Phoresy, on an Ichneumon in the genus Megarhyssa. Because so many people find Pseudoscorpions in their homes, we have devoted an entire page to them.

strange insect in my garden
My sons were in the garden and noticed this "yellow headed monster" – it seemed to have a long proboscis inserted into the base of our maple tree, and its abdomen slowly started turning from black to white, as if it were emptying itself into the tree. I used a stick and "encouraged" it to remove this from the tree, and the abdomen went back to black. There were actually three long black probosces coming from the end of the abdomen. Any ideas? Thank you very much. p.s. Is there anything I can or should do about this? a friend suggested injecting vinegar into the site where the eggs were likely laid. Would this work? Thank you.
Tara

Hi Tara,
We love your letter on so many levels, but especially for the interesting way you described the oviposition of a female Giant Ichneumon, Megarhyssa atrata. This is actually a beneficial insect. She is laying eggs in wood that has wood boring grubs. Her larva will consume the grubs and not harm your trees. She has an ovipositor, not a proboscis. We are also intrigued with the vinegar suggestion. Not sure, but is sounds as if vinegar might be effective in controlling some insect pests.

hornet-wasp bug
Was about to cut a part of a maple tree down when i was face to face with 10 of these guys, was wondering if you might know what the are. the have long tails that stretch out 4”
Mark

Hi Mar,
This is a female Megarhyssa atrata, a Giant Ichneumon. She is ovipositing, meaning using that stingerlike ovipositor to lay eggs on wood boring grubs that are feeding on the dead and dying wood of your tree. The larval Ichneumon will feed on the wood boring grubs.

Please help me figure this one out
Hi there.
My name is Kenneth. I was taking a bus home from niagara falls to London (ontario), me and my friend got laid over at the bus stop in "Burlington" (ontarip, not sure if the locations are going to help or not so yea.) but this gaint bug just fewl up and landed on the tree not even 2 fet away from me.. and it scared the crap outta me lol. I just wanted to know what kinda of bug it was. i’ll attach a copy of my picture here. (took the picture using my macro lens, so hopefully you can see it clearly) in the picture here. i really should of put something else in the shot just for scaling.. but i didnt think of it.. too scared lol. but the stinger (or what looks like a stinger :S ) was at least 6 inchs long. the body was about an inch and a half please if you could help me understand what this bug is. maybe next time i wont be soo scared of it. lol thanks. feel free to contact me at this address

Hi Kenneth,
While we understand your fear of the unknown insect with the six inch long stinger, we can assure you that this Giant Ichneumon is perfectly harmless. We believe this is Megarhyssa macrurus, but it might be another member of the genus. Your specimen is a female, as evidenced by her long ovipositor, not stinger. She oviposits her eggs deep inside dead and dying wood since the larvae feed on wood boring grubs. Through some complex sensory perception, she manages to locate the host grub for her larva and deposits the egg where larva will find host. It is not entirely clear if she oviposits directly onto the grub, or into the tunnel the grub has bored into the wood. We are currently researching the brilliant and interesting 17th Century naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian in preparation for a lecture we will give next month at the Getty. Merian pursued her fascination with caterpillar metamorphosis to the Amazon jungles of Surinam in the year 1699. Her quest to document the wonders of the exotic new world on originated in Germany, when, as a child of thirteen, she began to illustrate insect metamorphosis, including all stages and food plants of the caterpillars she located in her garden. She produced work at a time when the scientific community still believed in Spontaneous Generation, and she could not figure out why some pupa, or date pits as she called them, developed into butterflies and moths while others produced wasps and flies. Flies like Tachnid Flies and wasps like Ichneumons and Braconids parasitize the larvae and pupae of other insects, resulting in the confusion that Merian encountered while trying to unravel the wonders of life on this planet (and beyond) by direct observation. While that is way more information than you requested, the bottom line is that to this day, we still understand so little about the world around us, and one careless decision just might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, producing irreparable harm to our planet. While we believe that life will not be completely destroyed, that straw just might lead to mass species extinctions, including, perhaps, the human species. Thank you for taking the time to observe the world around you.

Found this on my wall
Hi Bugman!
I just want to start off by saying that I LOVE this site. It’s so helpful in identifying bugs all over the place. This morning, I found this bug sitting on a wall, and I have to say, he scared the pants off of me! Any idea what kind it is? At first glance I thought roach, then I looked at it a little closer, and thought, maybe it’s some weird mosquito or wasp that I haven’t seen before. I live in Alpharetta, Georgia… about 40 minutes south of the north Georgia Mountains, just to give a range for this bug. Any help identifying him would be appreciated! Thanks!
Vikki

Hi Vikki,
This is an Ichneumon, and it is a wasp. Ichneumons are parasitic on other insects, most often wood boring insects, and the female lays eggs with a long ovipositor. Most Ichneumons do not sting, but we have heard from Eric Eaton that some species can sting.

Thanks so much for letting me know! I really do appreciate all your hard work with the site and keeping up with the billions of requests you get.
Vikki Shifrin

Hi Vikki,
Your response made us chuckle. We will check with our web host, but we don’t think we have reached our first billion letters yet. We can tell you for certain there has not been a billion answers.