Egglaying Dolichomitus imperator, Juli 2009

Description:

I was lucky to be present when an ichneumon wasp had just started laying eggs (ovipositioning). As far as I have been able to find out the species must be Dolichomitus imperator, but that may be a mistake. I took a series of pictures showing how it struggled to bore the huge ovipositor down in the wood, probably hitting an unsuspecting larvae, that will serve as a meal-package for the hopefull offspring of the wasp. The ovipositor is usually protected by a sheath that is visible on some of the pictures. The series of images covers a duration of little less than 10 minutes I have made a blog entry in Danish on my Bruunshb blog telling a little bit more about the images