Diptera.info

Posted by KerryN on 19-05-2010 21:17

I photographed this wasp but have so far not been able to identify it from the books that I have. It was photographed on the Llyn Peninsular in North Wales, UK. Would anyone be able to help?

Many thanks
Kerry

Edited by KerryN on 19-05-2010 21:19

Posted by ChrisR on 19-05-2010 21:46

Looks like a parasitic bee called Nomada - there are many species but someone should be able to help :)

Edited by ChrisR on 19-05-2010 21:46

Posted by KerryN on 19-05-2010 21:56

ChrisR wrote:
Looks like a parasitic bee called Nomada - there are many species but someone should be able to help :)

Ah, right so it is a bee rather than a wasp. Thanks for the pointer Chris.

Posted by ChrisR on 19-05-2010 22:05

Well, it certainly looks like Nomada to me ... to prove it was a bee you'd have to put it under a microscope and look to see if the hairs were branched. Wasps only have straight hairs but all bees have some hairs with tiny little branches along them :)

Posted by KerryN on 19-05-2010 22:44

ChrisR wrote:
Well, it certainly looks like Nomada to me ... to prove it was a bee you'd have to put it under a microscope and look to see if the hairs were branched. Wasps only have straight hairs but all bees have some hairs with tiny little branches along them :)

I didn't realise that it was so hard to tell between the species. I have a lot of learning to do! :-)

Posted by ChrisR on 19-05-2010 22:53

Oh, there are about 7000 species of Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ichneumons, sawflies & ants) in the UK alone - they are quite a difficult group to identify and specimens+microscopes are usually a must, unless you are lucky enough to have photographed an easy one ;)

Bees are just an odd sub-group that have these branched hairs. They include the honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees, parasite bees ... all kinds of wonderful things :)

Posted by KerryN on 20-05-2010 07:18

ChrisR wrote:
Oh, there are about 7000 species of Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ichneumons, sawflies & ants) in the UK alone - they are quite a difficult group to identify and specimens+microscopes are usually a must, unless you are lucky enough to have photographed an easy one ;)

Bees are just an odd sub-group that have these branched hairs. They include the honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees, parasite bees ... all kinds of wonderful things :)

Hi Chris

How many of that seven thousand are bees and wasps?

Regards
Kerry

Posted by ChrisR on 20-05-2010 09:48

Tricky question - mainly due to the definition of "wasp" ;)

Bees are fairly easy - there are about 260-270 species of those (1 honey bee plus bumblebees and lots of solitary bee species).

Wasps are harder because virtually all the other 6700 species that aren't ants (there are about 50 ant species here) are variously called 'wasps' but if you mean social wasps (the black & yellow jobs) then there are about 10 species of those ... the rest are the sawflies (herbivorous wasps), cynipids (gall wasps), chalicids (a big parasitoid group), ichneumons (a huge parasitoid group), solitary wasps and plenty of others too numerous to mention :)

Chris R.

Posted by KerryN on 20-05-2010 14:50

#10

I had never realised there were so many different types of bee in this country. I keep honey bees so I recognise that one!

Many thanks for responding Chris.

Regards
Kerry