A photograph of an ichneumon fly which has been seen on several occasions both on raspeberries in our garden, and in tall grassland close to Rubus caesius in an adjacent meadow.. It looks very close to Dusona falcata in Paul Brock's recent insect book. Any identification suggestions would be greatly appreciated
Better photo now I have worked out what to do!
Hiya Simon, I've had a quick peek at the NBN Gateway and it lists 61 species of Dusona, of which falcator (not falcata) is but one. Now I'm no expert, but assuming it is a Dusona I'd guess you'd need to run the specimen through the keys, possibly several times, to come to any sort of a firm identity. Sorry not to be a tad more helpful!
Just to avoid any possible confusion, I think these beasties are nowadays usually called ichneumon wasps rather than the rather misleading name of ichneumon fly (it's not a fly).
Looking at Google photographs, one form of Amblyteles armatorius looks good,.There are two different photos that appear. One has a black bar through the abdominal yellow unlike mine, while the other looks very promising. Any further thoughts would be very welcome.
I really don't think you can do sawflies from google or general insect books. They need to be keyed out.
Agree with Sarah - really can't trust Google as an ID resource when it comes to Sawflies (possibly OK for a few, especially the larva maybe). But I thought we were on about Ichneumons not sawflies lol :D
And ichneumons are even harder than sawflies IMHO......
God knows why I put sawflies...... Thinking of two different groups which are difficult enough with keys, let alone without them I suppose!
Gavin Broad provided some info on ichneumon ID here:
http://www.ispotnature.org/node/100349