Favoritos de headsoup

This has been an interesting learning curve for me. Bought on by me always being curious. Plus some mistaken thinking. Although, I have photographed little wasps on this Ootheca over the last few months, I didn’t relate the tiny holes in the Ootheca to them. Instead I thought it meant the baby Praying Mantis had emerged out of them.
So, thinking it was old and empty, I wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. I was not prepared for what I found.

Inside I found the larvae of Genus Podagrion. The first two images are clearly female showing the unmistakable Ovipositor. As for the other images I’m not sure if some are just shedded skins. Not having a microscope I couldn’t tell. I put the Ootheca back together as best I could.The next morning I had one wasp.
Over the next few days 3 more hatched. All have been released now. I also learned that the little holes in the Ootheca, are made by the female’s Ovipositor piercing through the Ootheca to deposit her eggs, onto the Mantis eggs, for them to feed on.

Ichneumonid Wasp
Identified as Ichneumonidae on Bowerbird by Ken Walker: "Difficult one to place to family. The structure of the antenna (swollen scape with remainder small) and the extensive hind wing venation points to Ichneumonidae."

For a week or more, these colourful wasps have been gathering over a sandy patch of the forest floor, circling, landing, and regularly ovipositing into the soil. This is one of the two that I collected for identification.

See also this field sighting:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/185209940

This species is quite unlike the braconids we commonly see here.
[collection ref: 2309L]

For full details see my workbook page:
https://southernforestlife.net/notes/2023/9/24/braconidae-braconinae

Two wasps ovipositing into a bundle of stuck together leaves
presumably containing a lepidopteran pupa or pupae. This is on an Acacia Implexa.

The following times refer to wasp 1, on the left, based on a series of photos. Wasp 2, on the right, landed at about
the same time or earlier but left briefly a couple of times. Wasp 1 was in the same position whenever I looked.

11:13:25 wasp 1 lands
11:14:16 wasp 1 ovipositor in position
11:16:37 wasp 1 ovipositor unsheathed
11:25:09 (photo 1 - chosen as it is the best photo showing both wasps)
11:57:39 wasp 1 ovipositor fully inserted for the first time in my photos - wasp 2 not present (photo 2)
12:04:30 wasp 1 still in position
was not watching in this interval during which wasp 1 departed
12 21 59 wasp 2 still ovipositing. I left at this point

So in summary it took wasp 1 somewhere between 51 and 68 minutes to complete oviposition.