Wasp 0.5mm primitive?

[charlieb]

Mmm.. worms.. just what I need whilst eating lunch

[JRsbugs]

Yes this is an evolving thread!

I had already got a lot of good pics of the mating darters, but a wasp was checking out the female and they flew off but returned high up in the Oak tree still joined. The male landed near the pond when I went back, I think I'm going to have baby Common Darters too!!

The moss orange blob did have me wondering it it was a fruiting body, but there's a lot of those tall stems with seed heads. Could they be a pollinator to the orange body?

Lol Charlie, give me your address and I'll see if I can send you some!!

[charlieb]

Originally Posted by JRsbugs

I'll see if I can send you some!!

No ta!

[JRsbugs]

Oh I am disappointed Charlie!

I got 3 pics of the egg today, two show what I can see in the first pic of the undamaged egg, a small greenish area with an apparent red spot. To me, in one of the pics there looks to be some blackish dots on the green area, and some filamentous hairy bits at the edges. The other looks to have some black hairy streaks across the middle. The extra pic is for Jason, look to the right a little below and you will see a microscopic springtail!

This (to me) looks much the same as the first damaged egg but a little more advanced.

[JRsbugs]

Yesterday was a productive one! The egg which was stuck with a vegetative stem, albeit a very thin one, looked to be a goner but it has swollen and lifted off the brick on it's stake. I can again see an embryo! I imagine it has the necessary building blocks for life, and may be repairing the damage. I don't hold out much hope, but it looks promising!

I also found another egg which looks similar but more rounded with one tapered end. There is another two similar looking 'eggs' but I had thought they looked like a longer egg broken in the middle, I haven't uploaded the pic but they look promising. I have had the Common Darter since August so it might be that although I haven't seen them laying.

The Southern Hawker had laid at the opposite end of the pond under some moss which I had pushed under the slab at the edge. She also looked to be laying on the liner further down, yesterday I found an egg not far from that position. It looks a little deflated, and has a protrusion coming from the embryo, not sure what's going on there. Next to it is a water flea's egg which is approx. 1mm long, a little dried, the pond has been full of them.

[JRsbugs]

I went out with the camera even though the sun only lasts a few seconds, I checked my dragonfly supply, lol! I can see 3 new eggs at least, a couple look a little narrower and could be the darters eggs. I checked out the stuck egg, and saw something amazing about 7mm to the right of it which for some reason didn't seem to be there before! Or maybe I was concentrating on that egg, or it has rolled out from under the moss, there's a tiny baby something in a clear surround which looks to have hairs all around it, a head with two red eyes, four leggs which I can see, all attached to a crescent shaped egg sac at the end on it!!!!!! It's exposed to the weather at the edge of the moss, and I'm afraid a bird or something will eat it, but if I try to put more moss to cover the side of it a bird will be encouraged to scratch it. It's a little over 2mm long, looks more rounded, but I found it from above while searching through the lens and it looks to be a long egg shape from above.

I have to download the pics, oooohhh this is great, lol! There's around 4 eggs I found on the liner near where the other one is with the protrusion, that egg has swollen more around the protrusion, I will soon forget which egg is which as I'm finding so many, lol. I didn't even look yesterday as it was not a good day, today isn't much better but from now on I will have to observe them daily whatever the weather!

[JRsbugs]

I have started a new thread showing the development, for those wishing to follow it here is the link..

Dragonfly egg development.