If this is the case, sirenobethylus charybdis may have written the playbook that cuckoo wasps follow today. Named after the wily cuckoo bird, these emerald-coloured critters lay their eggs in other ...

An ancient wasp may have used an odd structure at its rear end to capture insects and lay its eggs on or inside of them, according to a new study published Thursday in BMC Biology. Researchers named ...

It's a playbook adapted by many parasitic wasps, including modern-day cuckoo and bethylid wasps, to exploit insects. But no ...

For example, a group of wasps known as cuckoo wasps lay their eggs in the nest of another wasp species, and the larvae feast on their new hosts’ young once they hatch. A fossil enthusiast ...

Bizarre parasitic wasps preserved in amber about 99 million years ago had trap-like abdomens that they may have used to ...

Preserved in amber, the wasp appears to have used a Venus flytrap-like structure on its body to grasp potential hosts.

However, the hind wings aren’t its only striking features. S. charybdis appears to have evolved a unique, three-flapped abdominal setup similar to the leaves of a Venus flytrap. The paddle-like lower ...

The morphology of S. charybdis indicates the wasps were parasitoids — insects whose larvae live as parasites and eventually kill their hosts. Modern-day parasitoids of the superfamily Chrysidoidea ...