My workshop's external siding seems to attract various kinds of things that do at least some of their growing inside a case of twigs, stones, or other junk. Some of them look like fine felt. Yesterday one of the cases was abandoned but not too far from where it had been, I saw a creature that was about the color (orange) as the occupant of the case. It looked like a big ant but with interesting patterns in its wings. I snapped picture after picture (It was running around). When I was cropping them, I saw that it seemed to have a pair of flies or wasps probably mating underneath its wings. I wonder if this is a case of parasitoid flies or wasps whose female will lay her eggs in the abdomen of the host. Anything you can tell me will be so helpful! The creature was about a 10 mm in length....Much larger than the ~6 mm case.
My impression is that it is a formicid reproductive female (a future queen) with which two males of the same species are trying to mate at the same time (sometimes formicid males are very different in size and even in colouring in comparison with their female partners; see for instance, in internet, photos of mating in the genus Prenolepis). As regards the first photo, is this insect perhaps the same adult female that is coming out of the cocoon? Regards,
Rinaldo Nicoli
My opinion is you are right - there are two possible parasitic wasps under wings of this ant (genus sp.) female specimen
Thanks Rinaldi and Dmitry. Indeed, one of my first conjectures was that that large ant had some connection with the case in picture 1. I now am thinking that was false. I've never seen the mating flight before. In fact, the only one I ever saw of these ants was a female who had already shed her wings.
So do you think this would have been the beginning of the flight? I must have just missed it.
I've seen other examples of insect swith sexual color dimorphism but never with such a difference in size. If you hadn't mentioned it I would have been a while figuring that out!
So thank you so much for putting me onto the right track! This is a great day!
The first picture is a Psychidae bag worm. http://bugguide.net/node/view/225378
The mating ants are just coincidental. Male ants are often 1/2 the size of the females and the scape of the antennae is much shorter reducing the elbow effect of the antennae seen in female reproductives and workers.
Hey, thanks for the ID on the bag. Is it a real worm inside or is it a larva that will develop into something else? It does make a beautiful comfy-looking bag. Thanks again....
My impression is that it is a formicid reproductive female (a future queen) with which two males of the same species are trying to mate at the same time.
Thanks for all everyone has provided as an answer to this innocent question!
Thanks to I. A. Marhoon! Her answer is a simple copy of the first lines of my answer. She has the same opinion that I have!
Regards,
Rinaldo Nicoli
Heh...... (re: Rinaldo), that's because to some within the vast research community "points of RG activity" matter....their RG score rises.... I.A.M., that is "he" or "she" was at least "polite enough" to post once.....I once posted a question and received 20+ absolutely identical nonsense replies, from the same RG member....I sent a complaint to RG but.....I guess it's not their goal to "sweep the arena"....RG remains my valuable source of information (downloadable papers) but the "Questions" section gets spammed and polluted sometimes....
on the original Martha's question: nothing new to add, and sorry for a small "pollution" to your question ;-)
It's not unknown for some person not to have anything to say new so they post what someone else had already posted. I think it's cheesy. On at least one occasion I write to the person to ask why s/he had copied my answer. I never get a response to that, and so I consider it case closed. I didn't recommend the copied answer, although it could happen that I don't recognize my own words and commend the person who parroted them until later. We try to run clean ship here.
If the insect in the first photo is a larva of a casebearer moth, not only the family Psychidae can be taken into account, but also other families of Lepidoptera, e.g. Tineidae and Oecophoridae. The most typical cases of larval psychids are quite different from the one in the photograph. Tineids and oecophorids are generally small moths, so their larval cases can be only 5 mm in size even for a mature larva. Regards,
Rinaldo Nicoli
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