July 8, 2011 | Victorio Siqueroli Park, Uberlandia, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Each one of these eggs from the underside of a leaf was parasitized by a wasp. Â Their barrel shape with round fringed caps suggests they might be stink bug eggs. Had a stink bug nymph emerged, the caps would have been neatly opened. Instead, they each have a roundish hole chewed in them. In fact, there’s a parasitoid wasp straggler chewing its way free from the rightmost egg.
I might be seeing things, but you can almost make out the wasp’s body through the transparent egg shell.
View from the other side
I didn’t notice at the time, but a mite came along.
Mite approaching
Reference:
[book:0811736245]
Nice! I got to watch similar wasps emerging from similar stink bug eggs I had collected in Virginia (http://bugtracks.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/stink-bug-egg-parasitoids/), but you have to be pretty lucky to show up at just the right moment to see this in the wild.