hexapoda:

I’m submitting my portfolio for the biological illustration internship this week. I hope they like my work!!

heaveninawildflower:

Wasps (1921) Edward Julius Detmold (1883-1957) from Faber’s Book of Insects.

http://www.gallery.oldbookart.com/main.php?g2_itemId=12372&g2_imageViewsIndex=1

Wikimedia

atelierentomologica:

Nest of honey wasp attacked by jaguar, from Marvels of Insect Life by Edward Step, 1916

rhamphotheca:

Various North American Wasps

from Field book of insects, New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1918. 

biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1595453

LitwakSamples1 by USDAgov on Flickr.

“Scientific illustrator on staff with the Systematic Entomology Lab, in the Plant Sciences Institute, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Taina Litwak created these two paintings. The top image is the lateral view of a tiny golden parasitic wasp (Sycophila new species) done for Dr. Michael Gates. The lower image is a newly described species of bark beetle (Licracantha formicaria) done for Dr. Steve Lingafelter. The golden wasp was done to illustrate a publication, a study (being done in Florida) of a complex of wasps and their parasites, which produce of galls on a native species of vine plants. The beetle painting is a lateral view of one of a series of 3 newly discovered species of ant mimic bark beetles from the Dominican Republic. USDA image.”

Scorpion, Hornet, Tarantula, Wasp, Rattle Snake by Library & Archives @ Royal Ontario Museum on Flickr.

The tarantula hawk has the second most painful sting in the world (second to the bullet ant), but is relatively docile and rarely stings without provocation.

The female wasp hunts for tarantulas to feeds its larva. It captures, stings, and paralyzes the spider, then lays a single egg on the spider’s abdomen. When the wasp larva hatches, it enters the spider’s abdomen and feeds voraciously. After several weeks, the larva pupates, becomes an adult, and emerges from the spider’s abdomen to continue the life cycle.

The male Tarantula Hawk does not hunt; instead, it feeds off the flowers of milkweeds, westernsoapberry trees, or mesquite trees (females feed on these same plants, as well).

Thanks for the submission!

biomedicalephemera:

Ammophila urnaria acquiring caterpillar to stock egg burrow

The thread-waisted wasps are all known as “predatory” wasps, and are classified as “parasitoids”. Females dig a burrow with several chambers, and collect caterpillars to fill each chamber. They then lay an egg on the top caterpillar, and permanently seal the burrow. This is generally repeated several times, with between 2 and 13 burrows filled with caterpillars.

Thing is…the caterpillars aren’t dead. They have to manage to not become dessicated or decayed for the entire period between the laying of the egg and the pupation of the juvenile, a period sometimes longer than several weeks, during the summer. The female wasp stings the caterpillar around the abdomen with a nerve-destroying paralytic poison, and while paralyzed, the caterpillar body automatically utilizes the stored fat (normally used to metamorphose into a moth or butterfly) to stay alive and not rot. Occasionally the caterpillars have been found to die, or not be paralyzed the entire period prior to their becoming food, but the female wasp has an extremely efficacious venom. The caterpillars almost always remain in their chamber until they’re eaten alive by the juvenile.

After it pupates, the adult wasp is capable of digging out of the burrow from the inside.

Wasps, Social and Solitary. George Peckham and Elizabeth Peckham, 1905.

(via rhamphotheca)

compendium-of-beasts:

[Locusts, flies, crickets, earwig, and other insects.] (1848)

via NYPL