A black male flower wasp watching me from a curved eucalypt leaf. The leaf is well chewed and the veins and leaf margins are pink. The flower wasp is fringed with golden hairs and has quite long antennae. He was probably waiting for a wingless female to crawl out of her burrow and start calling to him with pheromones. He then picks her up to mate on the wing.
Close up of the head and thorax of the wasp. The eyes are overall dark grey but made up of black and lighter grey checkerboard patterns.
Some of the male flower wasps have mesmerising checkered eyes. #thynnidae #insect
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