When most people think of wasps, they imagine a stereotypically striped stinging insect. Such wasps are part of the family Vespidae, but they are, in fact, a minority of species and unrepresentative of their order.
When most people think of wasps, they imagine a stereotypically striped stinging insect. Such wasps are part of the family Vespidae, but they are, in fact, a minority of species and unrepresentative of their order. Taken by sheer number of species, the average wasp is quite a different animal: timid, stingless, and very, very small.
Encarsia pergandiella laying eggs in a silverleaf whitefly. Both the wasp and her target are research animals in Molly Hunter's lab at the University of Arizona.
Encarsia pergandiella is scarcely larger than a speck of dust. This particular speck, however, is our friend. Encarsia is used extensively in agriculture as a natural control of the silverleaf whitefly, a pest of tomatoes, cotton, cucumbers, and other crops. Like the majority of wasps, Encarsia is not aggressive and does not sting.
photo details:
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x lens on 12mm of extension on a Canon 20D
ISO 100, f/10, 1/250 sec
diffuse off-camera flash
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Alex Wild
Alex Wild is Curator of Entomology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies the evolutionary history of ants. In 2003 he founded a photography business as an aesthetic complement to his scientific work, and his natural history photographs appear in numerous museums, books and media outlets.
