Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Superfamily: Ichneumonoidea
Family: Ichneumonidae
Subfamily: Labeninae
Genus: Certonotus
Species: C. fractinervis
Binomial name: Certonotus fractinervis
Certonotus fractinervis is the largest of the native parasitic wasps. The female’s slender, blackish body is 2-3cm long with an extremely long ovipositor consisting of three long threads. She has yellow spots on top of her metasoma (abdomen) and one yellow spot on the top of her thorax. The legs are orange. The top third of the antennae is a bright yellow and is topped with an orange tip.
The female Certonotus fractinervis uses her long ovipositor to bore holes into native trees to lay an egg in the larvae of the elephant weevil, Rhynchodes ursus which tunnel into native trees. When the egg hatches it eats the live elephant weevil larva from the inside causing the larva's eventual death. The wasp’s larva pupates inside its host and emerges the following summer as an adult.
There is a large imported parasitic wasp (Megarhyssa nortoni) that is similar with a long slender ovipositor but it has round yellow spots down the side of the metasoma (abdomen), not on top of the metasoma like Certonotus fractinervis.
Thanks to http://www.teara.govt.nz for information.
Thanks to Wikipedia for text and Information: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
