Insect Explosion: Parasitoid or Bird?
When I first started to become interested in insects two summers ago, I had a lot of inspiration thanks to the Catalpa trees in my backyard. I've always loved Catalpas: their flowers bloom starting in June and are spectacularly beautiful. They also smell really great. One of the insects that can be found on Catalpa is the Catalpa Hornworm ( Ceratomia catalpae ). This caterpillar in the family Sphingidae can grow quite large (~3 inches) and goes through boom and bust cycles. During the summer of 2010, it was definitely a boom year for this caterpillar, which provided me with ample specimens. There are also ample caterpillars for parasitoids to have a field day. Braconid wasps are especially prevalent, resulting in many of the caterpillars dying as they become vessels for broods of wasps. Here you can see a Braconid wasp crawling on the cocoons. This was a common sight, so I got used to seeing it after a few days. But once I found one that looked dramatically different (even from the...