cuckoo-wasp

Brilliantly coloured parasitic wasp, exhibiting a metallic sheen. Cuckoo-wasps may be green and ruby, blue and ruby, or they may be entirely green or blue. They have lost their ability to sting. There are over 1,000 species.

The female wasp lays her eggs in the nests of other wasps and bees (mainly ground-nesting species), hence the name ‘cuckoo-wasp’. The larvae feed on the larvae of the host species.

Classification Cuckoo-wasps are in genus Chrysis, family Chrysididae in order Hymenoptera, class Insecta, phylum Arthropoda.