White-banded Flower Wasp - Epactiothynnus sp.


Two winged males, body length 20mm

This Flower wasp is black in colour with yellow spot pattern on thorax. The pattern vary among individuals. As all other Flower Wasps, female is wingless. The female legs are modified for digging and her wings are lost. We sometimes found this wasp on sandy footpath in Karawatha Forest and other Eucalypt forest in Brisbane.


Male


Female

Two Males Fighting

On Jan 2009 in Brisbane Koala Bushlands near Burbank, we saw two male flower wasps looking for something on the sandy forest floor. We believed they sensed the smell of female flower wasp.



When the two males met with each other, there was the fighting. It was only a light combat, took a few seconds, then the two wasps separated and kept searching again. When they met they start the small fight again......and again.......

It is common to see a male Flower Wasp carrying a wingless female, with tail to tail attached, flying between flowers.



On Dec 2006, when we looking for the Sand Wasps on a sandy soil, we saw this male Flower Wasp it was searching for something under a dry leaf. It tried very hard for a long while, even did not care about our disturb.



We noticed something was hiding under within those small gravels. We pushed the wasp apart, carefully remove the gravels and tried to see what it was. We saw a large black ant, or actually a female Flower Wasp. The female Flower wasp was wingless and dark bluish-brown in colour. It was trying to run away.



The male Flower Wasp quickly found the female and attached tail-to-tail with the female, then quickly flied and rested on a small plant.

From the observation, we believed the male Flower Wasp found the female wasp by sense of smell.



We found this Flower Wasp again in Karawatha Forest She-oak area on Dec 2007.




Reference:
1. Northern Territory Insects, A Comprehensive Guide CD - Graham Brown, 2009.
2. Epactiothynnus {genus} - Arthropoda; Insecta; Hymenoptera; Tiphiidae - BOLDSYSTEMS.