Abstract Thursday ...

... cropped.

The weather was nice enough for us to get out for a lovely lunchtime walk at Housenick.  Unfortunately because of the very high winds over the past few days we saw quite a few branches broken off the huge evergreen trees along the pathways.  In fact, at one point we had to go off the path because of some huge branches laying across the path.  I called the township to report the problem so we will have to wait and see if they come and clean things up.

Also along one of the trails we found the above object ... complete with a couple of ladybugs.  Can you tell what it is?  

Spoiler alert:  We were surprised to see a ladybug on this object so we did some research (actually Richard did!).  And found some interesting information.  Wasps inject their larva into a ladybug where they turn the insect’s body fat into food for their young. When the larva extracts itself from the abdomen of the ladybug and spins a cocoon in which it pupates into an adult wasp, the ladybug remains in place on top of the cocoon, deterring predators by twitching.  But no worries ... these parasitized ladybugs often recover from the invasion, repairing the external and neurological damage.


Thanks to Ingeborg for hosting Abstract Thursday each week.