Nocturnal Ichneumonoid Wasps Webinar with Gavin Broad.

Several groups of parasitoid wasps are frequent and conspicuous visitors to light traps. However, species are difficult to identify and there remains much to discover. This webinar introduces the variety of nocturnal ichneumonoid wasps and the features used to identify genera and species. We will look in more detail at the difficult genera Ophion and Netelia, detailing some of the opportunities to add substantially to what we know about the species in the UK and their life histories.

These wasps depend on other insects as hosts, particularly caterpillars, and as such could be tremendously useful in monitoring the effects of land use and climate change on insect populations. But they are just fascinating insects in their own right.

Gavin is a taxonomist working on ichneumonoid wasps. He is head of the insect collections at the Natural History Museum, London, and is a co-investigator on the Darwin Tree of Life initiative, to sequence the genomes of all UK species. Born in Liverpool, he maintains a keen interest in the wildlife of Hilbre Island, in particular.

We will end with an interactive question and answer session.

Please book your space via Eventbrite and you will be sent information on how to join the webinar.

This session will run on Zoom. If you are new to Zoom you will need to create a Zoom account and download their software. This is all free and you can do so here: https://zoom.us/

You can use a laptop/desktop computer, smartphone or tablet and it isn’t necessary to have a webcam or microphone to participate.

Further info on how to join a zoom meeting can be found here.

Image (c) Gavin Broad