another mystery

[Lrptls]

my room seems to be full of all sorts of mystery bugs latley. i just posted last week about a mystery spider, he disapeard too =\ but this thing is more scarier than the spider and he was just about dead when i found him. i pickd him up by an antena and his legs bairly moved, i threw him outside. he was really big too, about 1.5 inches from head to pointy butt end. reminds me of a masquito hawk/hornet hybrid. does any one know what it is? thanks

[ranmasatome]

It is an Ichneumonidae (Family) or so i think..there are some things you can check for to be sure because they are sometimes mis-identified as Brachionidae...but thats going into details. i have lots of them in my insect collection... and this one i have seen before...its from North America and i'm quite sure it is an ichneumonid. They range in size from smaller than a pin prick to big ones like these. Species wise, i can't really say much as i'm no expert in this part of the insect family. There are experts out there that have spent a good part of 20-30 yrs studying species in this family and still haven't covered them all. The sheer number of species in this family alone can cover more than all the bird species there ever was that was on earth. Thats how many there are!! lol!! Many of them are parasites...usually using their long ovipositor (rear pointy thing) to lay eggs in wood or other bugs like wasps or bees or beetles or flies etc....some even parasitise the parasites!! So they don't really sting...in fact not many can penetrate our skin...but there are always some that can. Man...Bugs are cool...and since i study them...i'm cool by association...lol!! Have fun guys!

[Lrptls]

thank you alot, i really wanted to know what is was just cause it lookd so interesting and never seen any thing like that before. bad part is...guess exactly where i found it...in a cage with a cacoon i'v had for months. i hope he didn't do any thing to the cacoon, i can't tell because its a silk moth cacoon and theres bundles of leaves stuck to the cacoon and every thing is wraped in silk. so i really hope its ok, its supose to be hatching this month or june, i guess i'll see what happens.

[J3000]

I live in the great northern part of michigan we have those here my mother works for the dnr she agrees with me it looks like a mosquito hawk