Macrosiagon flavipennis (Wedge-shaped Beetle)

Photograph taken by on Sunday, July 13, 2014
Macrosiagon flavipennis (Wedge-shaped Beetle)

Macrosiagon flavipennis (Wedge-shaped Beetle)

This is one of the wedge-shaped beetles (Family Ripiphoridae) but one without a particular common name. It’s Latin binomial Macrosiagon flavipennis comes from the Greek word for large jaw bone and the Latin for yellow wings. These beetles parasitize wasps and bees, by laying eggs on flowers. When the eggs hatch, the larva attach themselves to a visiting bee or wasp. It is then carried back to wasp nest where it burrows into a host larva.

There is a closely related and very similar species, M. dimidiata, but the “fin or cup-shaped tubercle on the posterior of the pronotum” (the plate between the head and the yellow of the wings), is indicative of this species.

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