Scary buggers

This alien-looking creature posing for me is called Gasteruption jaculator. They are rare enough not to have a common name, at least not in English or Dutch. This particular one wasn't at all scared of me, as you can tell from the focal length: this is an up-close, wide-angle shot:

^{Olympus XZ-1, 28mm, ISO320, f4, 1/80s}

It is a parasitic wasp that lays its eggs on the bodies of larvae of solitary bees or wasps, so it isn't very bee-friendly.

Here's another parasitic wasp, one that is very rare and I am quite proud I managed to get a photo of one, even though it came towards me and landed right in front of me, so I didn't have to look for it. It is called Megarhyssa superba:

^{Olympus XZ-1, 112mm, ISO400, f4, 1/160s}

This one parasitizes on the larvae of wood wasps, and it is very big: the body without the long egg-laying thing at the back (ovipositor) is 4cm (1.6") in length.

These wasps can't sting like normal wasps and they avoid people. Still, somehow, they look scarier than most insects, even though they leave you well alone.

Both these photos made it to Wikipedia, and they are under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license, so feel free to scare the wife with them.