Tiny wasp, long tail

I was out for a walk the other day and found myself in among some brambles. I stopped to look at the leaves and noticed some miniscule insects flitting around. One was perched on a leaf, its long tail extending up in a crescent.

My first thought was that it was one of the Chalcid wasps which I posted about 3 years ago. This wasp has a weird significance for me. In 2021 I scheduled that post before my father (a great supporter of this blog over the years) was admitted to hospital.

I was knocked out of that crisis zone for a couple of seconds by notifications about a blog I’d written, cued up and forgotten about. Those tiny wasps seemed so insignificant and irrelevant then, but here they still are, doing their thing as they have done for millions of years.

According to iNaturalist this is a species in the Torymidae family. Well, in an election week, that wasn’t what I was expecting. I now work in a politically restricted job, and wish to be as clear as Michael Gove that this is not a campaign ad for those true blue heroes of our great nation.

The wasps are parasites, so make of that what you will. I didn’t name them!