Subject: What’s this Bug?
Location: Central Oahu, Hi
March 3, 2013 12:57 pm
It’s about 2 inches long and the colors are bright neon blue, bright neon green, with orange on the legs. Oh and it has wings.
Signature: curious
Dear curious,
This is a curious parasitic wasp known as the Emerald Cockroach Wasp, Ampulex compressa, and you can read about its interesting life history in our archives. In a compressed version, the female Emerald Cockroach Wasp preys upon Cockroaches to feed her brood by stinging the Cockroaches and turning them into zombies. You may read more about the Emerald Cockroach Wasp on TrekNature where it states: “The wasp is common in the tropical regions of South Asia, Africa and the Pacific islands. The flying wasps are more abundant in the warm seasons of the year. A. compressa was introduced to Hawaii by F. X. Williams in 1941 as a method of biocontrol. This has been unsuccessful because of the territorial tendencies of the wasp, and the small scale on which they hunt.”