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A
Eupelmus female attempting to oviposit into the cocoon of a
microgastrine braconid wasp, which is itself housed inside the
cocoon of a moth species in the family Urodidae. The braconid wasp
larvae would have been an internal parasitoid of the host moth
caterpillar and would have finally killed the host after the host
caterpillar had spun the outer cocoon in preparation for pupation.
The braconid wasp larva would then have spun its own ovoid cocoon
and pupated inside this structure inside the moth cocoon, the latter
having evolved to reduce the incidence of parasitism at the pupal
stage.
The last two images depict the hypopygium
of the Eupelmus female extended,
which means that she has deployed her ovipositor through the lattice
network surrounding the cocoon. Whether her ovipositor is long
enough to reach the braconid cocoon is not clear in the photographs,
but if she has succeeded then this would be an example of
hyper-parasitism.
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