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The World of Minibeasts

The Little Tortoiseshell and its Enemies - a Parasite of the Braconidae family

 

Small, elegant and fatal to their hosts Within the cotton fluff the larvae make their own individual cocoon and turn into a pupa. Finally, the grown-up Braconids hatch.

Then another Braconid generation mates and looks for its victims to lay eggs in them and to start their life cycle again.

Small: hatched Braconid

 


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Photograph by José Verkest, Text by Maria Pfeifer