Last June I posted an image of a Robin's Pin Cushion with the tiny parasitic Bedegaur Gall Wasp emerging. Inside the 'cushion' that the rose forms in reaction to the wasp, there will be many tiny chambers and within each one an egg is laid.
Bedagaur Gall Wasp, Robin's Pin Cushion and my thumb....
Now this year we have gone one step further and Mark Hart has taken a photo of a tiny parasitic wasp that lays its egss inside the gall so that the young can feed on the Gall Wasp larvae developing within. So the plant parasite in turn gets parasitized!
Torymus bedeguaris ... It needs such a long ovipositer to lay its eggs as it has to get through the Pin Cushion first!
13-7-12
Howard Vaughan, Information Officer