In our garden Common mallow (Malva sylvestris) is part of the hunting grounds of the potterwasp Ancistrocerus gazella [1]. Flying around the plant she will check out all the closed flowers for the presence of a possible inhabiting caterpillar.
Later on the day she seemed to be successful. Agitated she started gnawing holes in the flower. In previous encounters I’ve observed the mandibles are used to pinch the flower in an effort to push the larva in the direction of a gnawed hole. Through one of the gnawed holes I could make up the head of a frantic caterpillar that nervously tried to flee in opposite away from the wasp.
A full disc forced me to interrupt the observation. On return with a new one the wasp unfortunately had left already. To my surprise the larva suddenly appeared in one of the holes, crawled through it and fell to the ground. There it kept crawling around until it disappeared between some stone in a wall. The Mallow seed moth (Platyedra subcinerea) larva lives inside the flower that is closed with silk and feeds on the developing seeds.
Literature
1 Nederlands Soortenregister
