Our discovery this week is due to some photogenic wild sunflowers.
I was taking a few photographs, when…
what is that tiny insect flying by?
There it is again. Can you spot it?
To give you scale, this is what it looks like on a sunflower petal (actually ray flower).
Talk about tiny! It is a parasitic wasp (Pteromalidae).
Why are tiny wasps hovering around a sunflower? It is possible that they are parasites of insects that visit sunflowers. Many species are parasites of insect eggs. It is also possible the wasps are feeding on nectar, although I saw no evidence of feeding. They also could be males waiting for females to visit.
What do you think these tiny wasps are doing?
