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u/redmeat84

Image 1 — Mud dauber hyperparasitism? What did we find? (Pacific Northwest)
Image 2 — Mud dauber hyperparasitism? What did we find? (Pacific Northwest)
Image 3 — Mud dauber hyperparasitism? What did we find? (Pacific Northwest)
Image 4 — Mud dauber hyperparasitism? What did we find? (Pacific Northwest)
Image 5 — Mud dauber hyperparasitism? What did we find? (Pacific Northwest)
▲ 8 r/Entomology

Mud dauber hyperparasitism? What did we find? (Pacific Northwest)

Hello! Mud daubers built a nest on my dad's house a number of years ago. It had been abandoned for long enough that we decided to take a look inside, and found a couple of old pupal cases within. I opened one up (completely sealed, not the case in picture 1) under a dissecting scope, and found:

  1. Three legs, measuring around 3mm in length (not pictured). Presumably from the original mud dauber pupa
  2. Five pupae? molts? measuring 4mm each (slide 2).
  3. The specimen on slide 3, measuring 1mm in length.
    In the mud around the pupal case, I also found two fully developed insects (slides 4&5) measuring ~1.5mm each.

Any ideas of what these parasites could have been? We read that cuckoo wasps and chalcid wasps are common parasites in mud dauber nests, but I was having trouble finding any information about the size, quantity and appearance of their pupae. If anyone has any insight into their identities or why none of them hatched from this case after eating the mud dauber, please let me know :) Thanks!

u/redmeat84 — 1 day ago