A few years back, during a vacation in southern Sweden, I stumbled upon a large, yellowish-black wasp drinking the nectar from a blooming Angelica flower. Recognizing it as a type of parasitoid wasp, a group I had heard was notorious for how difficult they were to identify, so I decided to challenge myself. I collected the insect and brought it home to Gothenburg. After a couple of days, many misidentifications and some invaluable assistance from more experienced people, I felt confident in calling it Dusona falcator
This encounter with what has now become one of my favorite insects inspired a deep dive in parasitoid wasps that has consumed much of my spare time for the last couple of years. Early on I realized that one of the main reasons the group had gotten its reputation was simply that the required knowledge was hard to obtain. While other entomological fields have modern books and fancy websites Hymenopterists often have to do with outdated publications and researchers personal notes. This website is my attempt to help rectify this issue.
BugWeb is a personal project of mine aiming to make identification of difficult groups easier. It currently contains interactive keys for a number of Hymenoptera-groups compiled by me, though the goal is to host keys handling other orders in the future too (hopefully by other authors). The main focus area is Scandinavia or “Northern Europe”.
All images are taken by me and the subjects are from my own collection unless outherways stated. All illustrations are also made by me.
I hope you'll find something useful! If you have any questions, suggestions, need help, notice any errors, or want to use my photographs or illustrations, please don't hesitate to contact me!
