They catalog a new species of wasp by their way of communicating

Cuckoo wasps (also called emerald wasps) are parasitic insects belonging to the Chrisalidae family endowed with extraordinary beauty. Their metallic green or blue color makes them a common target for photography lovers, and no wonder, as they shine like jewels. However, these insects have also brought entomologists upside down when it comes to cataloging them. Although it is a large family, to date only about 1,000 different species have been described.

"Usually we distinguish insects from each other by their appearance, but cuckoo wasps are so similar to each other that simply cataloging them is a very difficult task," explains Frode Ødegaard, lead author of the research that led to this new species, found on the Lista peninsula, in Adger County, Norway.

For more than 200 years entomologists have struggled to classify these wasps correctly in museum collections, for which they had to determine which characteristics were inherent to each species, something very difficult with individuals so alike

Over the past 10 years, barcoding DNA data has become an invaluable tool for cataloging species based on differences in genetic material. "But it's not that easy either," says the expert. In this case that concerns us, we had two cuckoo wasps with apparent morphological differences under the microscope, but very similar from the genetic point of view”.

The key is in the language

Given the difficulties, a scientific team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology set to work to find other possibilities, and one of them was the pheromones. and it is that insects communicate with each other through a chemical language shared by species that are closely related to each other. It is as if they speak very similar languages, which serve in the same way to avoid interbreeding.

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Scientists looked at the languages ​​in which each wasp communicated to find out whether or not they belonged to different species and came up with something of a surprise: an individual that seemed to speak a different 'dialect' from its conspecifics with a single purpose: better infiltrate their victims.

Linguistic parasite

The cuckoo wasp is an insect with above average linguistic abilities. They are parasites, which means that they behave like cuckoos, that is, they lay their eggs in the nests of other species of bees and wasps. The larvae grow rapidly and hatch before the host's eggs, which are eventually eaten by intruders.

"When you live as a parasite, it's important not to be found out, and therefore the cuckoo wasp has also learned the language of its host," says Ødegaard.

The researchers were able to discover that the two nearly identical cuckoo wasps actually belonged to different species. They use different hosts, which means they spoke completely different "languages".

“The evolutionary development associated with wiping out another species with a sponge happens very quickly. That is why you can have two species that are very similar genetically but still belong to different species, ”says Ødegaard, who was also in charge of naming the new legaro. The proposal that received the highest number of votes was that of Chrysis parabrevitarsis, which means 'to be together with brevitarsis', alluding to Chrysis brevitarsis, a species very similar to the newly discovered one. Ødegaard was also responsible for giving the species its slightly simpler Norwegian name, at least for Norwegians: sporegullveps.

The only known specimen of this new species is the one collected by the researcher himself. "It may seem morally reprehensible that it ends up stuck in a needle," he says. "However, even with current advanced methods, it is not possible to use live animals to carry out studies like this," reasons the scientist, who ensures that the collection of individual specimens it has no impact on an insect population whose viability depends more on other factors, such as the quality of habitats.