bad bug

[chanceychelsey]

One of my outdoor cages has sliding doors that latch. When latched there is a small opening which is accessible to bugs. I do not get much of anything in the cage but lately there are these bugs that are the size of an ant and have wings. They love to sit on the chrysalis'. I have had a few chrysalis' which have been bad and not hatched and a butterfly who came out yesterday with one side of the wings not straight enough to fly. These bugs are actually stupid enough to sit on the chrysalis long enough for me to grab and squish them.
Please tell me these are not wasps who are infecting my Monarchs.

Waystation 927
Tottenham, Ontario

NAU119 from 2010 made it to Mexico!

[dandjtaylor]

Sounds like tach. Flies.

[chanceychelsey]

Dwayne,

Do you know if it can penetrate the already formed, dried chrysalis?

Waystation 927
Tottenham, Ontario

NAU119 made it to Mexico in 2010!

[Mona Miller]

One of my outdoor cages has sliding doors that latch. When latched there is a small opening which is accessible to bugs. I do not get much of anything in the cage but lately there are these bugs that are the size of an ant and have wings. They love to sit on the chrysalis'. I have had a few chrysalis' which have been bad and not hatched and a butterfly who came out yesterday with one side of the wings not straight enough to fly. These bugs are actually stupid enough to sit on the chrysalis long enough for me to grab and squish them.
Please tell me these are not wasps who are infecting my Monarchs.
Waystation 927
Tottenham, Ontario
NAU119 from 2010 made it to Mexico!

These are tiny and will try to lay on the chrysalis. I don't think they can lay on the chrysalis that have already hardened. I think they try to get to chrysalis that are still soft. They can get into tiny cracks and will zip in when the doors are open. I get them in my tents and they get squished ASAP.

http://www.monarchlab.org/lab/research/ ... fault.aspx
Less is known about the extent to which other parasitoids attack monarchs, but at least one wasp in the family Braconidae has been reported in monarchs (Arnaud 1978). The closely-related queen, Danaus gilippus is parasitized by two Chalcid wasps, Brachymeria annulata and B. ovata (Prudic and Olson 2005), as well as L. archippivora (Arnaud 1978). Current research in the Monarch Lab demonstrates that the wasp Pteromalus puparum (in the family Pteromalidae and the same superfamily, Chalcidoidea, as the two Chalcid wasps found in queens) could be an important pupal parasitoid (Oberhauser et al. in preparation). Pteromalus puparum wasps are tiny, and over 200 can emerge from one monarch pupa.