Talk:Parasitoid wasp/Archive 1

Untitled
Parasitic is misleading and incorrect, These animals are parasitoidsPlcoffey (talk) 04:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Virus Particles Clarification
In the Channel 4 (UK) documentary series outlined see in the womb it was stated that the parasitoid wasp injects virus like particles which affect a caterpillars behavior so that it defends the wasp lave from predators. Please can somone clarify this as I've not been able to find further info on this.

Chrysomelid larva picture misinterpreted
Under the section "hosts" there is a picture of a cereal leaf beetle larva, Oulema melanopus L. This picture needs to be deleted from this section, or at least have its legend corrected. The term "polyembryonic" is wrong, as well as "consumed from within". What this picture shows is a cereal leaf beetle covered with a layer of mucus filled with the beetle own excrements (usuall refered as "fecal coat"), as well as a single insect larva stuck on its side. It is indeed likely that this insect larvae on its side is an parasitoid, but since it is in the mucus layer, not actually inside the beetle body, if it is a parasitoid then it is an "ectoparasitoid" (probably Necremnus leucarthros (Nees), which is as far as my research went, the only recorded ectoparasitoid parasitizing the cereal leaf beetle (http://www.taxapad.com/local.php?newwolp=79691785)). Necremnus leucarthros is not polyembryonic (Jan Gallo, 2007. Parasites on Oulema (Lema) lichenis Voet, 1826. In: Encyclopedia of pest management, Volume 2. Ed: David Pimentel, CRC Press, p. 447), and so far no larval parasitoid of the cereal leaf beetle has been demonstrated to be polyembryonic (list of parasitoids of the cereal leaf beetle available on "TAXAPAD" online). Furthermore, in no circumstance this picture shows that this cereal leaf beetle larva is parasitized with a "polyembrionic parasitoid". All that this picture shows is a single larva, probably of N. leucarthros, on the side of the fecal coat of the cereal leaf beetle larva. In addition, since this larva on the side of the beetle larva in not actually inside of the beetle larva body, but rather in the layer of mucus covering its back, saying "consumed from within" is also innapropriate. Entomologger (talk) 21:52, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Article misconceived
I have done some editing to the article, but its content as it stands at present is badly misconceived or grossly mislabelled. It refers to parasitoidal wasps as though the only ones were in the Braconidae and Ichneumonidae and as though all the members of those families were (probably polyembryonic) polyDNAvirus associates. Which is nonsense on both counts. There are parasitoidal Hymenoptera in well over a dozen families, and not all of them have any known, necessary or even significant viral associations, let alone polyembryony. As it stands this is quite unacceptably misleading, and, to coin a term, unencyclopedic. Is anyone thinking of doing something about it? I suggest either merging it with Parasitoid (together with drastic surgery) or changing its titles and internal scope to match its intended content (also with drastic surgery). JonRichfield (talk) 18:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 20:10, 1 May 2016 (UTC)