Parasite!

OK, I know I know, so much for fine words about keeping a blog going. Perhaps we're just all going to have to accept that this will be something of an occasional feature.

Anyway, rest of the USA trip was great.... rest of the summer produced a few new things, which I'll probably come back to in due course. Or probably not, come to think of it. Anyway...

This is what inspired me to write again. On 25th July, Trudy, Duncan and I (Tom was swanning around in Yellowstone!) went to contribute to a "bioblitz" at Strumpshaw Fen, where I found this teeny little caterpillar on a bramble leaf...

I didn't know what it was, so I kept it in a pot, and fed it lots of bramble leaves, and it grew up to look like this...

This is the caterpillar of a particularly cracking moth, called the Peach Blossom (Thyatira batis). It then pupated in the pot, and it should really then have emerged to look like this...

Well, that would be all very nice, except it didn't emerge to look like that at all. In fact, back when it was a teeny caterpillar, a parasitic ichneumon wasp had clearly found it and laid an egg on/in it. The grub from this had then grown inside the Peach Blossom caterpillar, undetected, until hey presto - look what emerged...

Actually, I think this is even more stylish than the moth. I don't know what it is though, so any suggestions welcome. Ichneumon wasps seem to be a bit of a problem, given that there's about 2000 species in the UK and virtually no-one who can identify them. Hmmm. Surely a case for a sabbatical....?