Looking like a 5 mm piece of bird-dropping, this little black and white capsule is a cocoon of an ichneumon wasp. It was attached to the leaves on this young tree and wrapped around it was the skin of its larval host - a lepidopteran. Mimicking bird-dropping and wrapping the skin of the larval host over and around is, apparently, one of the many strategies employed by ichneumonids to escape attacks from hyperparasitoids. Spotted on a young black wattle (Acacia mearnsii) in a nature reserve.
Cup-moth parasite fly.
About 9 months earlier I found a moth cocoon which was slightly unusual in size, colour and location so I decided to grow it out. Today shock, horror and delight when a prickly looking fly opened the lid, climbed out and stretched it's wings.
On a Grevillea stem growing closely entwined with a small eucalyptus tree in a local nature reserve.
Victim was Doratifera vulnerans - Mottled Cup Moth
This one is Tachinidae probably Winthemia genus.
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