Excellent encapsulation of the "hunter of dragons" natural history (with bonus ant impersonations).

Thank you for your kind words Barrett. These wasps are real shy. I was using zoom to film it. The tree she was ovipositing was right smack in the middle of a forest path popular by runners. I have to admit without the sensitivity and respect of the runners I would never be able to record this. All of them kindly changed their course as soon as they realized what I was filming.

Thank you for your kind words. This wasp indeed is one of the "athletes of nature" with its extraordinarily long ovipositor. Hard to observe close. One needs some real good butterfly binoculars or a camera that can zoom from afar.

Come to my porch in Illinois. I got my face right up next to one with another one close by. Fascinating watching them do this!

Hence why I'm here trying to figure out what I saw. I've never seen anything like it but these 2 were far from shy! I live in a small down and they were on my dead tree right in my front yard by my porch

I was able to get real close and I just stood there and watched the whole thing

What you have seen in Attenborough's excellent documentary is most probably a caterpillar hunter. Here you see a wasp hunting on another predatory wasp therefore it adds an extra trophic layer in the food chain. You can learn more at: naturedocumentaries.org/3843/giant-ichneumon-megarhyssa-macrurus-ovipositing/

Yes! That's exactly what it would be like if we scale it up to ours.

You need some big scissors

Thank you!

Exactly what I was thinking

It's highly specialised antenna and feet sense hollow opening and movement inside the wood. Fascinating.

Drilling happens with the help of enzymes secreted at the tip of the ovipositor. Enzymes digest wood. You can learn more at: naturedocumentaries.org/3843/giant-ichneumon-megarhyssa-macrurus-ovipositing/

How does it find the exact location of the prey? I would love to know the answer as well! :) :)

Science would say it’s evolution, or adaption, but I believe it’s of intelligent design. I believe both science and spirituality or “religion” work hand in hand. The world is too complex and complicated to be created in a soup of chaos. Just as an example, a single strand of DNA is too mathematically complex to be random. It would take a mathematic impossibility for it to have randomly developed the mathematical complexity DNA’s code has. Nature is a good example things don’t happen randomly. Ants made Darwin question his own theory of evolution. That’s the key word “theory”, since evolution is still just a theory. Darwin never believed in evolution either. History makes it seem as if Darwin only believed in evolution. But again, he understood it as a theory.

@@theprophet_-__cxvii__-_8693 Could`nt agree more - why not have a creator(s) initially, and then evolution takes over.

@@andrewwatson4516 Because there is no evidence of a creator, science requires rigorous testing and evidence. Most people who speak about intelligent design dont understand science, no respectable scientist believe in intelligent design not even the religious ones.

Merci! :)

excellent question. there has to be a peristaltic movement moving the egg down the ovipositor sandwiched between the two hard sheaths (two brown structures guiding the ovipositor). that is my hypothesis. needs testing :)

Orgasm.

Like pooping.

Naturally!

It's actually drilling or penetrating that wood and into other larvae and laying eggs in them... Ikr it's fucking scary like how does it know!

@@rencarb3045 nature is scary

@@doodlegames4576 it's everything and we have to accept its ways and often even animals of the same species don't hurt one another but fight only honorably maybe us humans should learn from nature... Penguins slap but could easily fuck shit up with their sharp beaks. They wouldn't do that to their own species. Insects on the other hand don't give a fuck about coexistence it's all cold as ice and no emotions or mercy. Some of them would be better off extinct like mosquitos. All those do is cause problems for most species and spread diseases and death.

You are most certainly not alone. You can learn more at: naturedocumentaries.org/3843/giant-ichneumon-megarhyssa-macrurus-ovipositing/

@@NatureDocumentaries Fantastic!!

@@TheEutrophication Thank you! I am glad to share this once-in-a-lifetime-ish footage with folks like you.

@@NatureDocumentaries I really love this world and more i learn about it, more i want to learn. It's a bit creepy sometimes (for example ampulex compressa), but so fascinating too!

@@TheEutrophication Oh yes, the emerald jewel wasp is a star phenomenon indeed!

did it look like this? vimeo.com/203048674

Excellent question. Tapping into a resource that no others can reach must have provided a great selective advantage. How this predator-prey arms race started? We must turn the microphone to an evolutionary biologist.

Hmmm... Don't know what to say...

Itu tawon

I am not aware of such a wasp. I know a few beetles that have evolved to live with nomadic army ants: naturedocumentaries.org/9882/associates-eciton-burchellii-rettenmeyer-2009/

The Ichneumon Wasp

Nope, completely different species.

I know...