A larva of Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) that I found feeding on Sheep's sorrel (Rumex acetosella) on Baildon Bank (VC64) has been the victim of a parasitoid attack.
I can count seven woolly braconid cocoons underneath the larva and I suspect that these will belong to Cotesia cuprea (Lyle).
It is gregarious, killing the host as a final instar larva, and sometimes reasonably common from the host (though the Hyposoter that mummifies the larva is often commoner). A brood in single figures would be quite unusual and they can sometimes number twenty or more.
A study of the Chalcidoidea and Ichneumonoidea in Vice-counties 61-65
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Friday, 22 February 2013
Aleiodes sp. near borealis
Labels:
Aleiodes borealis,
Aleiodes leptofemur,
Baildon,
VC64
Saturday, 16 February 2013
Caterpillar mummified by Aleiodes sp. near borealis
On 1st February 2013 I found this mummified noctuid caterpillar attached to a gorse flower on Baildon Moor, VC64.
This is likely to have played host to the parasitoid currently named Aleiodes borealis, which has a rather broad host range of moth larvae in the overwintering generation, especially Xestia and Noctua species.
The RES handbook "CLASSIFICATION AND BIOLOGY OF BRACONID WASPS" (Shaw & Huddlestone) states that "In most cases the host is killed when only partly grown and the mummy is stuck to the foodplant (or often another substrate, following a well characterised behavioural change by the stricken host) by mean of a gluey fluid through an antero-ventral slit cut in the host integument by the fully grown parasitoid larva".
Labels:
Aleiodes borealis,
Aleiodes mummy,
braconid,
VC64,
Yorkshire
Friday, 12 October 2012
Cotesia melanoscela
Dolichogenidea breviventris
.
Dolichogenidea breviventris (Ratzeburg) (= Apantales mesoxanthus (Ruschka)) is a known parasitoid of Coleophora serratella and I found three examples in July and August 2012 emerging from serratella cases found on birch in Baildon and Esholt, West Yorkshire, VC64.
The middle photograph shows the female.
Dolichogenidea breviventris (Ratzeburg) (= Apantales mesoxanthus (Ruschka)) is a known parasitoid of Coleophora serratella and I found three examples in July and August 2012 emerging from serratella cases found on birch in Baildon and Esholt, West Yorkshire, VC64.
The middle photograph shows the female.
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