Parasitic wasps are a remarkable group of insects. It has long been thought that the most diverse group of insects (in terms of species numbers) are beetles. Some entomologists however belive parasitic wasps to be the most diverse and more are being discovered all the time. 

This particular species is parasitising the eggs of some kind of squash bug by laying it's own eggs inside them. The baby wasp when they hatch will have the live squash bug eggs to eat. 

![P3080675.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfXLjvmMr22Uekr9PfLDtgT3P9qFdW9EzySmEZAEveWpE/P3080675.jpg)

While studying for my degree in zoology one of my professors told us a story about this family of wasps to show us how bizarre and complicated their lives can be. There are parasitoid wasps that find live caterpillars to lay their eggs in, when they hatch they eat the caterpillar from the inside out. If that was not strange enough there is another species, a hyperparasitoid wasp which finds a caterpillar which already has the eggs of the first wasp inside it and injects it's eggs. These eggs hatch first and eat the first wasp's eggs then the caterpillar. If that was not mind-boggling enough there are hyper-hyper parasitoid wasps which find a caterpillar which has the eggs of the first two species inside it. It then lays it's own eggs inside which hatch first then eats the eggs of the other two wasps and then the caterpillar. Such is the complexity in the world of parasitic wasps.