# Parasitic wasps?!



## infinity (Aug 22, 2005)

I've been feeding my L1-L2 chinese with aphids from the garden until now but today i noticed about 3 dead with several 2-3mm wasps in the containers... I observed the wasps and they went crazy over some dead aphids but seemed to ignore the mantids... SO my questions are:

If it was the aphids infected, would the mantid suffer by eating them or would they be destroyed in the mantid's tract?

If they infect the mantids, did they come in via ooth or externally? - If by ooth, how come they made it to L2 and didn't just emerge from the ooth? - I have the ooth still and nothing non-mantid has emerged.

I put one of the wasps in with another mantid and it gobbled it up greedily and the wasp showed no sign of interest in the mantid

PLUS I often find *statued* blackfly/ aphids on the containers - as if they'd been frozen there on the spot - sounds like a parasitic infection but why would the mentid die as a consequence?


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## Peekaboo (Aug 23, 2005)

> PLUS I often find *statued* blackfly/ aphids on the containers - as if they'd been frozen there on the spot - sounds like a parasitic infection but why would the mentid die as a consequence?


If the food has a parasitic infection, and a mantid eats the infected food, the mantid will suffer from the infection as well, due to the fact that it ingested the parasite. The parasite will be passed onto the mantid through digestion.

It's very prudent to make sure that what you feed your mantids is healthy. Think of feeding in terms of "you are what you eat".  Live, healthy, nutritious food, will make for live, healthy, mantids.


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## ellroy (Aug 30, 2005)

I'm not sure that the parasite would be injested intact......the mantis chew their food pretty well so i imagine that both parasite and host would be pretty well masticated. Also I think parastic wasps tend to be quite specific about what species they use as a host......

Does anyone know of parasitic wasps that use host mantids?

Cheers

Alan


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## PseudoDave (Aug 30, 2005)

Not specifically, but there are parasitic wasps that use pretty much any invert' they can get their ovipositor into. Ranging from half the size of an Ant (in UK), upto even hornet sized in south americas and rainforest regions. I dont think they're too species specific, so a mantis is just a big juicy cricket to a wasp that needs a host for its young.

Dave


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## infinity (Aug 30, 2005)

hasn't happened for a while so i guess things are fine now... 13 chinese all healthy it seems!!! so if i'm lucky and most are female (haven't actually checked), i could have 20-30 ooths!!!... and males to sell on so feel free to ask... (lucky males!)


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## Chris Dickie (Sep 6, 2005)

you certainly get parasitic wasps that parasitise(is that a word, lol) oothecae, not sure about live mantids though


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## infinity (Sep 6, 2005)

Well, there more than likely are... I know that there is at least one parasite for every animal species in the world- whether it be wasp, fluke, protazoa or whatever... I was feeding them wild caught aphids though so might have emerged from them- the apids seemed to *freeze* to the side of the container so maybe... but the strange thing is that the mantids died soon after...


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