They are collected in Russia, Krasnodar Region, Sochi, Caucasian State Nature Biosphere Reserve, July 17, in solitary wasp nest cell.
I don't know... But it would be strange if the wasp hunts for them inside honeybee hives...
now I get what you mean.. sorry, for some reason the images wouldn't open up and I only saw the caterpillars, but not that they were the prey. Thought you just found them in the nest.
a close up images of the head and 1st segment, prolegs and last 2 segments would be helpful
Thank you for your answer. Unfortunately I don't have these caterpillars (only these three photos).
I don't know whether the caterpillars in the photos really belong to the bee moth, Aphomia sociella (there is a similarity). But the caterpillars of the bee moth feed also on honeycombs of bumblebees and other bees, so a wasp can quest for them not only in beehives. Regards,
Rinaldo Nicoli
The caterpillars are definitely not of Aphomia sociella. This was introduced by Bastian, because he thought first, they were the predators and not the prey in the wasp net. But he revised this (see above).
I only can say, this are caterpillars of a butterfly (a moth) - species, but I don't know even the family.
Rudolf Ritt
I agree with Rudolf. The caterpillars seems to me like Noctuidae. The Sphecidae wasp is very specialized because all the preyed larvae in the wasp nest belong to the same species. In the second photo you can see the wasp larva.
Luis Miguel
Could be larvae of the Wax Moth Galleria melonella, Fam Pyalidae. They are sometimes parasitised by the Ichneumon Wasp Nemerites.
Nests in reeds or straws with such a structure of the cells could be prepared by wasps of the genus Rhynchium (Vespidae Eumeninae), which hunt lepidopteran larvae as food for offspring. Regards,
Rinaldo Nicoli
This is the nest of Euodynerus posticus, known hunting for a broad range of caterpillars. I found Gelechiidae, Tortricidae, Pyralidae and Hesperiidae inside its nest cells.
Usually I try to find the identical caterpillars near nesting site and to rear imago. In this case I have only a photo of dissected nest. Thus I don't know even the family.
OK, also Odynerus and Euodynerus are eumenid wasps (Eumeninae).
I believe that these are Satyrinae, because they have a narrowed neck between head and thorax, and their prolegs are distinctly "macrolepidoptera"- like. Pale coloration without distinct pattern would also fit. The otherwise similar hesperiid larvae tend to have shorter prolegs with crochets arranged more ring-like.
Dear Lauri,
I don't know sure the family of the caterpillars, but I am sure that they are not from the subfamily of Satyrinae, first of all the hairyness is quite different, also the body-shape, the dimension of the head...
What is "macrolepidoptera"-like? Macrolepidoptera is a classification with no phylogenetic value. What do they have in common?
Best wishes
Rudolf Ritt
Hi Rudolf, I got absolutely everything wrong, and you are right. The bad resolution I was lamenting, appeared to be due to my i-Pad, not because of the image. Now that I see the image well, it is obvious that these caterpillars cannot be what I thought, not even nearly. Setae are all too long and and prominent, as you say. What I interpreted as "well visible", as I thought, prolegs, are not those at all. If they can be seen better, I think they are indeed 'Microlepidopteran'. I quote here a sentence form our soon coming article (Heikkilä, Mutanen, Wahlberg, Sihvonen & Kaila 2015 [though, no originality is claimed for the definition, it is iteration of a long tradition]:
Elusive ditrysian phylogeny: an account of combining systematized morphology with molecular data (Lepidoptera). BMC Evol. Biol. 2015, in press.:
"A morphological trait in Lepidoptera regarded to be phylogenetically very significant is the larval proleg shape. It has often been used as a distinguishing feature to separate ‘Macrolepidoptera’ from ’Microlepidoptera’, but appears to be convergent in several lineages, viz. Schreckensteinioidea – Urodoidea, Zygaenidae, Papilionoidea and Macroheterocera, but excluding Pyraloidea. These groups usually have the following basic structure of the proleg: the base of the proleg is elongate and forms the greater part of the proleg; the proleg planta is asymmetric, laterally bulbous, and crochets are usually arranged as longitudinal mesoseries. The usual ’microlepidopteran‘ type of proleg consists of a small proleg base that is little more than a ring encircling the planta. The planta is either reduced or cylindrical, but not asymmetric, and the crochets most often are formed as a full or nearly full circle." These traits can occur in various combinations and, as you say, are not entirely phylogenetically significant (we continue with longer discusson on that subject in our paper). Coming back to your original question. Perhaps I should not say anything having shamed myself already, but my present impression is that these larvae would match well Pyralidae (at least). Again, sorry for my stupidness
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