Huge new wasp discovered in Sulawesi

drdeadlift

Wasp has jaws bigger than its head

August 2011. The new species of wasp, discovered by Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, is one of the world's largest wasps.

2.5 inches long
The jaw-dropping, shiny black wasp appears to be the "Komodo dragon" of the wasp family. It's huge. The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey said. "Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male's front legs. I don't know how it can walk. The females are smaller but still larger than other members of their subfamily, Larrinae."

Kimsey discovered the warrior wasp on the Mekongga Mountains in south-eastern Sulawesi on a recent biodiversity expedition funded by a five-year grant from the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program.

The insect-eating predator belongs to the genus Dalara and family Crabronidae. "I'm going to name it Garuda, after the national symbol of Indonesia," Kimsey said. Garuda, a powerful mythical warrior that's part human and part eagle, boasts a large wingspan, martial prowess and breakneck speed.
"The first time I saw the wasp I knew it was something really unusual," said Kimsey, a noted wasp expert who oversees the Bohart Museum's global collection of seven million insect specimens, including 500,000 wasps. "I'm very familiar with members of the wasp family Crabronidae that it belongs to but had never seen anything like this species of Dalara. We don't know anything about the biology of these wasps. They are only known from Sulawesi."


Discovered 300 new species
In her entire career as entomologist, she's discovered close to 300 new species. But on three trips to Sulawesi, she's brought back to the Bohart Museum "hundreds, maybe thousands of new species."

"It will take years, maybe generations, to go through them all," Kimsey said. "I consider Sulawesi one of the world's top three islands for biodiversity - along with Australia and Madagascar."

Sulawesi
Sulawesi, a large Indonesian island located between Borneo and New Guinea, is known not only for its endemic biodiversity, but also its rainforest and its proximity (three degrees) to the equator. However development now threatens plant and animal life.

Lynn Kimsey said "The terrain was steep, slippery and overall, physically challenging. This part of Sulawesi gets about 400 inches of rain a year. We were told that Sulawesi has a dry and rainy season. But the only difference we could see between the dry and rainy season is that during the dry season, it rains only in the afternoon."

2 acre spider web
Kimsey expressed amazement at the biodiversity of the flora and fauna. "We saw a colonial spider web that stretched across two acres. The adult spiders were about two inches long. We saw evidence of wild cows, anoa, found only in Sulawesi, and found the first record in that region of a Sulawesi palm civet, a weasel-like predator."

Director of the Bohart Museum since 1989, Kimsey is an insect taxonomist, specializing in bees and wasps and insect diversity. She received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1979 and joined the faculty in 1989.

Collected a millions specimens
Over the last four years, the international team of scientists has collected about a million specimens. Among the new species are: 1 bat, 2 frogs, 2 lizards, 2 fish, a land crab and many insects.

Kimsey is a collaborator of a five-year $4 million grant awarded to UC Davis scientists in 2008 to study the biodiversity of fungi, bacteria, plants, insects and vertebrates on Sulawesi, all considered threatened by logging operations and mining developments. Much of the mountain was logged two decades ago and now there are plans for an open pit nickel mine, Kimsey said.

"There's talk of forming a biosphere reserve to preserve this," she said. "There are so many rare and endangered species on Sulawesi that the world may never see."

Scary mofo

mjcom4d

drdeadlift wrote: »

Wasp has jaws bigger than its head

August 2011. The new species of wasp, discovered by Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, is one of the world's largest wasps.

2.5 inches long
The jaw-dropping, shiny black wasp appears to be the "Komodo dragon" of the wasp family. It's huge. The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey said. "Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male's front legs. I don't know how it can walk. The females are smaller but still larger than other members of their subfamily, Larrinae."

Kimsey discovered the warrior wasp on the Mekongga Mountains in south-eastern Sulawesi on a recent biodiversity expedition funded by a five-year grant from the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program.

The insect-eating predator belongs to the genus Dalara and family Crabronidae. "I'm going to name it Garuda, after the national symbol of Indonesia," Kimsey said. Garuda, a powerful mythical warrior that's part human and part eagle, boasts a large wingspan, martial prowess and breakneck speed.
"The first time I saw the wasp I knew it was something really unusual," said Kimsey, a noted wasp expert who oversees the Bohart Museum's global collection of seven million insect specimens, including 500,000 wasps. "I'm very familiar with members of the wasp family Crabronidae that it belongs to but had never seen anything like this species of Dalara. We don't know anything about the biology of these wasps. They are only known from Sulawesi."


Discovered 300 new species
In her entire career as entomologist, she's discovered close to 300 new species. But on three trips to Sulawesi, she's brought back to the Bohart Museum "hundreds, maybe thousands of new species."

"It will take years, maybe generations, to go through them all," Kimsey said. "I consider Sulawesi one of the world's top three islands for biodiversity - along with Australia and Madagascar."

Sulawesi
Sulawesi, a large Indonesian island located between Borneo and New Guinea, is known not only for its endemic biodiversity, but also its rainforest and its proximity (three degrees) to the equator. However development now threatens plant and animal life.

Lynn Kimsey said "The terrain was steep, slippery and overall, physically challenging. This part of Sulawesi gets about 400 inches of rain a year. We were told that Sulawesi has a dry and rainy season. But the only difference we could see between the dry and rainy season is that during the dry season, it rains only in the afternoon."

2 acre spider web
Kimsey expressed amazement at the biodiversity of the flora and fauna. "We saw a colonial spider web that stretched across two acres. The adult spiders were about two inches long. We saw evidence of wild cows, anoa, found only in Sulawesi, and found the first record in that region of a Sulawesi palm civet, a weasel-like predator."

Director of the Bohart Museum since 1989, Kimsey is an insect taxonomist, specializing in bees and wasps and insect diversity. She received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1979 and joined the faculty in 1989.

Collected a millions specimens
Over the last four years, the international team of scientists has collected about a million specimens. Among the new species are: 1 bat, 2 frogs, 2 lizards, 2 fish, a land crab and many insects.

Kimsey is a collaborator of a five-year $4 million grant awarded to UC Davis scientists in 2008 to study the biodiversity of fungi, bacteria, plants, insects and vertebrates on Sulawesi, all considered threatened by logging operations and mining developments. Much of the mountain was logged two decades ago and now there are plans for an open pit nickel mine, Kimsey said.

"There's talk of forming a biosphere reserve to preserve this," she said. "There are so many rare and endangered species on Sulawesi that the world may never see."

Scary mofo

Pics or gtfo

drdeadlift

http://bilder.bild.de/fotos-skaliert/tb-news-wespen_22580376_mbqf-1314478860-19633592/2,h=343.bild.jpg

Leeg17

*shivers*

WindSock

drdeadlift wrote: »

http://bilder.bild.de/fotos-skaliert/tb-news-wespen_22580376_mbqf-1314478860-19633592/2,h=343.bild.jpg

Ah Jesus. Oh holy fcuk.

Riesen_Meal

Leeg17 wrote: »

*shivers*

Now I'm scared...

gargleblaster

Meh, doesn't look that big really. All hype, this thing.


Ok no wait, followed link above, that looks much scarier than the pic on a blog I found.

Jesus Christ.


On second thought, maybe that's just a teeny tiny wasp used for comparison in the pic above?

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/huge-wasp.html#cr

dr.bollocko

Lets kill it with climate change.

/opens fridge.

/gets beer.

/leaves fridge open.

Take that wasp.

J. Marston

We're finished.

bijapos

mjcom4d wrote: »

Pics or gtfo

Here.

Big bastad alright. Cross that with one of those "African Killer Bees" and you'd have a spot of bother.

KTRIC

drdeadlift wrote: »

http://bilder.bild.de/fotos-skaliert/tb-news-wespen_22580376_mbqf-1314478860-19633592/2,h=343.bild.jpg

I for one welcome our new insect overloards !!!

WindSock

Feckin wasp bastards. How do they get their waists so tiny?

gargleblaster

I wonder which would win in a fight between this thing and an Asian hornet.

Abi

Just so long as it stays in Sulawesi, it's all good. Hate wappses.

barbarians

Meh, if he lands on my sitting room window and rests for one second he's going to be getting familiar with a cookbook

some random drunk

Was the wasp caught in a sting operation?






(yes I know that's terrible )

DrumSteve

Does any one have any spare fire we can kill it with.

Sunnyisland

This thread is some buzz.

Abi

Ye wouldn't wanna be sitting in a beer garden in Sulawesi with a pint of Bulmers..

Wolfe Tone

Maybe they are big and slow like bumble bees


I have my can of lynx and lighter on standby just in case

dr.bollocko

Abi wrote: »

Just so long as it stays in Sulawesi, it's all good. Hate wappses.

So now you've got a problem with immigrants?

Abi

dr.bollocko wrote: »

So now you've got a problem with immigrants?

If it looks like this I do.. http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/warriorwaspnewspecies.html

Sprouts

WindSock wrote: »

Feckin wasp bastards. How do they get their waists so tiny?

They suck their bellys in to make the other wasps horny

Bipolar Joe

It looked like the Alien Queen fucked a wasp and that's the result. Maybe there's something in all that conspiracy theory stuff.

Icyseanfitz

doesnt really look like it has a big sting or anything sure

Dangerous Man

An island no one has heard of.
Species no one has heard of.
Spider webs ACRES across.
WILD cows.


Yet, somehow, as soon as some professor stumbles across this shit, it's 'endangered.'

Ask. Me. Bollix.

Icyseanfitz

new species we know nothing about = definitely endangered :rolleyes:

Bipolar Joe

I think as standard, newly discovered species are put on the list in case they're rare. As another note, if they exist solely on this island, there's clearly not a lot of them. On the other hand, kill 'em all.

dfx-

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

doesnt really look like it has a big sting or anything sure

I presume all it can do is sting people like normal wappses. It unlikely to kill anyone, there's no need to panic - it likes the rain too...we should bring them over to Dublin...

deathrider

drdeadlift wrote: »

2.5 inches long

So the wasp is about the size of a Nissan Micra then?

Orando Broom

WindSock wrote: »

Feckin wasp bastards. How do they get their waists so tiny?

SHE JUST A FÜCKIN' BITCH!!!!!!!

Isard

Jaysus! Always been afraid of insects.

Orando Broom

Killed a wasp with me buke on the bus this morning.

Abi

Orando Broom wrote: »

Killed a wasp with me buke on the bus this morning.

*wrinkles nose*


But.. there'd be wasp bits on your buke then, noes?

Jam

Jesus, nature. Why are you so soul-destroyingly terrifying?

Abi

Jam wrote: »

Jesus, nature. Why are you so soul-destroyingly terrifying?

I'd avoid Sulawesi if I were you.

Skid

Get that wasp off my sandwich !!

Captain Darling

Pfft, this crowd have obviously never seen the wasps in the bog. Size of your fist. And the bastards would ate ya!

squod

Never heard of the place before and now Sulawesi makes headlines twice in the same day.

Seven dogs starved of food and water for two weeks are suspected of eating their Indonesian owner after he returned to his hometown in Manado from a holiday....

Lumboga was from northern Sulawesi island, a predominantly Christian area, where the local spicy diet is famous in Indonesia for including dogs, bats and forest rats.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/abandoned-2-weeks-starving-dogs-indonesia-eat-owner-142541221.html

pow wow

There goes my holiday to Sulawesi.

Monty Burnz

drdeadlift wrote: »

http://bilder.bild.de/fotos-skaliert/tb-news-wespen_22580376_mbqf-1314478860-19633592/2,h=343.bild.jpg

That looks shopped to me.

Saila

I will donate flamethrowers, tents and rations to anyone who is willing to burn these fcukers out of existence before they spread and get out of control

cocoshovel

Oh holy fúck! Im never going near that part of the world.

marcsignal

Asian Giant Hornet

site

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54exo8JTUs

1966

looks like a big fly


only started my entimology training !!

HazDanz

Fcuking hell better stock up on the premier onions.

Yakult

What happens in Sulawesi, stays in Sulawesi.







I hope...

Captain Darling

So this is the buzz in Sulawesi?

Outkast_IRE

game over man, game over! What the **** are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?:D

tayto lover

Looked at that picture and it looks like a hoax i.e. plastic wasp.
No comparison to the one i have at home.

citizen_p

NUKE IT!


only joking, i love stuff like this, like theat crater in south america where they discovered the new species of giant rat last year. The place had its own ecosystem due to the high cliffs surrounding it on all sides...