Colourful wasp makes first Dutch appearance

A new type of gold wasp, the rainbow wasp, was spotted for the first time this summer in the woods of Limburg. It took a while to identify it, but with the help of an Estonian expert, the colourful critter was found to be a Chrysis equestris, part of a family of wasps called ‘cuckoo wasps’.

Besides their beautiful colours, these incandescent wasps are ‘kleptoparasitic’, laying eggs in others insects’ nests, hence the cuckoo reference. The baby wasps then eat the eggs or larva in the nest, a bit like crashing a banquet.

The Netherlands has 57 types of wasps flying around.

(Links: www.naturetoday.com, www.nltimes.nl, Photo: sploid.gizmodo.com)

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2015 at 10:18 am and is filed under Animals, Dutch first, Nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: bees, insects, Limburg, wasp