New garden species

Gelis spurius♀︎

Last update: 10 March 2021
garden
species


Common

LOCATION: Krimpen aan den IJssel, garden

OBSERVATION:
2021-II-28


Now that I’m aware of the existence of the Gelis wesp, see here, all ants in the garden are suspects. Scanning the ground for early insects awakening after the winter I notice a very small ‘ant’ crawling on a stone wall. And for sure it has an ovipositor. It manages to escape in a gap between the stones. With the sucker still ready in position but without hope she will appear again I give up after 20 minutes. At that moment a larger ‘ant’ comes crawling up a leaf behind the wall and it is immediately clear to me it is a Gelis. The sucker doesn’t fail so the identification process can start.

It turns out to be a female Gelis spurius [1,2] (confirmation Paul Hoekstra), a common species.

Gelis spurius ♀︎
Gelis spurius ♀︎

References

1 Nederlands Soortenregister

2 SCHWARZ, Martin. Revision der westpaläarktischen Arten der Gattungen Gelis Thunberg mit apteren Weibchen und Thaumatogelis Schwarz (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae). Teil 3. na, 2002.

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