Chalcid wasp 'Gastracanthus pulcherrimus'

Chalcid wasps (pronounced 'kal-sids') form one of 19 families contained within the superfamily Chalcidoidea in which 22,000 species have been documented thus far, very many it's believed, still to be discovered.

The vast majority are no more than 3mm in length and the family contains the smallest insects in the world, invisible to the naked eye.

Most adults feed on plant nectar or on the fluids from the wounds of animals. The larvae of most species are parasitic on insects that are pests of food crops, making them beneficial to humans.

Given these numbers, little detail is known about many Chalcid wasps, and identification of them to species level is notoriously difficult.

Fortunately Gastracanthus pulcherrimus is the only species of its genus to be found in the UK and that itself is very rare, just 16 records currently on the NBN Atlas.

Other than that, Gastracanthus pulcherrimus larvae are believed to be parasites of wood boring beetles such as Buprestidae, commonly known as Jewel beetles.