Ichneumon wasps in the garden, menacing with their twitchy antennae and jerky movements, taking a break from parasitising insect larvae to satisfy their own energy needs.
Black Darwin
wasp Ichneumon delicatorius
Yellow-striped Darwin wasp Ichneumon xanthorius feeding on nectar from lovage
flowers. Its larvae develop parasitically inside the caterpillars of moths and
butterflies.
They are known as Darwin wasps because their gruesome
life cycles played a role in undermining the great naturalist’s belief in a
benevolent creator. “I cannot persuade myself,” he wrote, “that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created
the Ichneumonidae with
the express intention of their [larval stages] feeding within the living bodies
of caterpillars.”
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