parasitic wasp ID

[Mark3]

Sorry, no photo but i will do my best at describing it. It was 4-5cm in length and mainly black in colour. It had a white patch on its back, just above were its wings overlapped. Its antennae where black with a white section a third of the way up(if that makes sense). I saw it at fishing today but unfortunately i forgot to take the camara It was in a clump of soft rush and was very warey of me, if i moved it would run back into the rushes. It was an amazing thing to see, i have never seen such a large parasitic wasp before

Any help will be much appreciated.

Cheers, Mark

[Jason Green]

Hi Mark,

Your specimen sounds pretty average apart from the size! Try this page... Ichneumonidae - Ichneumoninae

Good luck!

[Mark3]

Thanks for the link Jason. It looked very similar to Stenichneumon militarius but it had a larger area of white on its antennae and a white area around its eyes. It might not have been 4-5cm, im not very good at estimating sizes but it was atleast 3cm's in length(i think)

[Jason Green]

OK... have you looked at the Coelichneumon spp listed there? It may or may not be on the UK list - ichneumons are a very hard group in some ways!! Some are easy, but others look pretty average and non-descript.