Greene's giant ichneumonid wasp
Megarhyssa greenei
Greene's giant ichneumonid wasp is a large, slim wasp. The female has a very long thin tail, a little longer than her body. She uses it to lay eggs deep inside tree trunks.
Lives in
United States and Canada
What does it eat?
Its larva lives on the larva of a wood-boring sawfly hidden inside a tree and slowly eats it.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Greene's giant ichneumonid wasp about 22 km/h (14 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
The female finds a sawfly larva hidden in the wood and lays her egg on it or close to it.
2
Its larva eats the sawfly larva and then turns into a pupa under the bark.
3
It comes out as a grown-up wasp about a year later.
4
It looks almost the same as a cousin whose tail is about twice as long as its body.
you asked
Most asked questions about Greene's giant ichneumonid wasp
?What is the long tail for?
The female uses it to put her eggs deep into wood, next to a sawfly larva.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Megarhyssa greenei
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Ichneumonidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Ichneumonidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Megarhyssa greenei (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Bruce Marlin. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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