Parnips nigripes, usda, matt buffington

This is picture 9 from a 12 picture invited series by Matt Buffington (matt.buffington@usda.gov) at the USDA Parastitic Hymentoptera group using specimens from the U.S. Natural History Museum Smithsonian. Matt uses a system very similar to ours to photograph and stack this super tiny wasp. Looking for the missing link between gall wasps and other cynipoids? Look no further than Parnips nigripes! This wasp parasitizes Barbotinia gall wasps that gall Papaver in the Mediterranean; how's that for being super-specific? Well, this wasp also has many morphological features of gall wasps, so we consider this species to 'bridge' the entomophagous figitid wasps with the phytophagous cynipid wasps!