Little Bitty Wasp. ID, Symmorphus canadensis

[TomP]

This little wasp is 4 to 6 MM long, and never sits still. The hole is the size of a pin head, it is a powder post beetle hole.

The difference in the type of powder post beetle, can be determined by how the ink tip of a ballpoint pen fits in the hole, that is how small it is.

I used a 60 MM and 56 MM of tubes on a 7" bogen ball head tripod. These pics are cropped.

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Not a sharp shot, but the only one of the wasp carrying what looks like mud onto the hole.

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I have posted on bug guide, but no reply to the ID yet.

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[Butlerkid]

Amazing photos! 56MM of tubes.....!!!!! THAT's amazing too!

 

[dossy]

Stunning, Tom!

 

[TomP]

Amazing photos! 56MM of tubes.....!!!!! THAT's amazing too!

Stunning, Tom!

Thanks, karen and Dossy. I was face down on the floor, the 7" tripod was flat, and the tubes had the 60 bumping the floor, had to prop the tripod up on a DVD:smile:. I stuffed the framing, but this is Auto Focus, so I take what I can get.

These were shot at F16/18 and 1/200 SP. Maybe I should have backed of the aperture and bumped the SP up a bit.

The little 7" Bogen has a ball head, and is a good little micro tripod, oddly, it does not have a model number on it.

 

[senna]

These look great to me Tom, having worked with tubes for a little bit now, I appreciate the skill it takes to pull off photos like these.

 

[sektor 11]

Noob here....what are tubes?

 

[TomP]

Noob here....what are tubes?

Extension tubes are hollow, they increase magnification, but cut down on light and depth of field. The good point is there is no glass to reduce image quality.

Have a look at this thread, while it mostly about manual focus lens, it will give you more info. Nikon tubes will not auto focus. Kenko tubes will, but build quality is not the best, but that does not seem to hurt performance.

https://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/showthread.php?t=302655

 

[cybercops]

Nice wasp. What is he eating though?

 

[ngc1514]

I hope that's not the siding on your house, Tom! Great shots.

 

[olshroom]

Way to go Tom.

 

[cbbr]

Fantastic!

 

[TomP]

Nice wasp. What is he eating though?

He is using an abandon hole, I think it is just cleaning out the pollen and dust accumulated there. Might dig out my microscope and have a look, not that I would know what I was looking at.

I hope that's not the siding on your house, Tom! Great shots.

Well that's the porch floor, according to the book powder beetles will not live in any one wood older than 5 years. Oh how wrong they are.

Way to go Tom.

Thanks Jim, auto focus is really hard at that tube lenght.

 

[TomP]

I got an ID," Symmorphus canadensis", but only after my post was moved around on bug guide twice, I have never had that happen before.

It's cool that they are using 2 of my pics on the Symmorphus canadensis, page, one of them is the image of it carrying mud.