Ichneumonidae - maybe Netelia

[Gateside]

I have uploaded one photo - link below.
My basic ref book has illustrations for a Netelia & and Ophion example species, indicating a difference in the venation. So I have chosen Netelia - it seems to match.
However the single illustration is for Netelia testacae, which has a black tail. Mine hasn't, though it has some odd blemishes, making the adbomen look a bit like a carrot than has some bad bits on it.

I will load a side view if it's worth it - the one now loaded took ages, so I want to be selective.

It would be nice to take ID to species level if possible, of course, but I gather that it's tricky even for experts with these species.

Nigel

[Jason Green]

Ophion.

[Gateside]

Jason, do you know of any useful links so that I can take the ID further? I would have thought I had enough microscopic detail to have a crack at it.
Thanks
Nigel

[Jason Green]

I think we have 14 species. You could try the HyMIS forum

The fact it's a unicolorous orange will probably help, but there's no useable 'microscopic' detail here - you need a microscope for that.

[JRsbugs]

There's several similar orange wasps. Look in Ophioninae for some examples.. I doubt you would get a species from that one shot.

Laboratoire: Insectes et environnement

Look at this old thread..

Ichneuman fly

[Gateside]

Okay, I'll give those options a try.

Thanks
Nigel

[Gateside]

I have given up, but only for the moment.
I have looked at the French site, but there doesn't seem to be any help in what are the key features. There are a couple of items on Nature Spot, but no match there, and no guidance as to what to look for specifically.
On the French site, it does seem to look very much like Ophion longigena, but that doesn't appear to be a UK species, and anyway the wing venation has some subtle differences.
I have looked via Google, and the images from the French site seem to appear elsewhere!

I am going to a conference for wildlife recorders in late October, and there is bound to be somebody there that can help.

Nigel

[Gateside]

Hi Jason
My Ichneumonidae has been identified from my selection of photos as
Netelia cristata (and by a national expert). It does not seem to be recorded much in the UK!

Nigel

[Jason Green]

Thanks for the update Nigel, and sorry for the inadvertant bum-steer. So, not even Ophioninae! I keep saying each year, 'This'll be the year I start with these'. Maybe I should try in 2012...

[Gateside]

Hi Jason
I have checked another insect book of mine, and though it doesn't go into detail, indicates the venation differences between Ophion & Netelia, and there is a closed cell called an areolet which is distinctively present in Netelia. There are pointers elsewhere in the venation too.
I accessed Gavin Broad's test key, but struggled with it and gave up in the end. Even referring to it in retrospect, it never refers to my species anyway, so it would have been no use.

I have looked to get some sort of confirmation in my own mind (some disbelief!) that this is really what it is, and there are no UK images, in fact it is difficult to get much on it at all. I found some Taiwanese images that look quite convincing, which is nice to see. It does look as though there is a shortage of UK images though.

I think unless you intend to give this whole family of insects some time, it does seem like a big mountain to climb. I am inclined to leave it to the experts on this one. Though the expert I used said I should have actually collected specimens, since he only managed to ID half of my submitted photo sets to species level. Even so, one of them to genus level was almost as rare as this Netelia seems to be.

All this difficulty suggests to me that there is maybe a lot unrecorded, and people just don't bother because it is too difficult.

Regards
Nigel