These insects are really eye-catching. They present an incredibly suggestive thorax, unlike the rest of the congeners. They are quite small wasps, barely 1.2 centimeters in length and their color is usually metallic green or blue.
All wasps of this species are solitary external parasites, mainly of bee larvae or adult wasps. Their larvae grow rapidly and eat the eggs, food that the host has placed in the nest.
Insects communicate with each other through pheromones, in “chemical language” and closely related species often have completely different “languages” to avoid interbreeding. It was precisely in Norway that biologists discovered that two almost identical cuckoo wasps belonged to different species.
“We had two cuckoo wasps with microscopic differences in appearance and very small differences in DNA,” explained Frode Ødegaard, a researcher in the Department of Natural History at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and co-author of the work published in the journal Insect Systematics and Diversity.
The new species, scientifically named Chrysis parabrevitarsis, lives in the dunes of the Lista peninsula in the municipality of Farsund, Agder county, Norway.
“Even with today’s advanced methods, it is not possible to use live animals for studies like this one, but the collection of individual samples, fortunately, has no impact on the population. Insects have enormous reproductive potential “, clarifies Ødegaard .
Referencia: Villu Soon et al. 2021. Cuticular Hydrocarbon Profile Analyses Help Clarify the Species Identity of Dry-Mounted Cuckoo Wasps (Hymenoptera: Chrysididae), Including Type Material, and Reveal Evidence for a Cryptic Species. Insect Systematics and Diversity 5 (1): 3; doi: 10.1093/isd/ixab002
