Neralsia species, usda , buffington

This is picture 5 from a 12 picture invited series by Matt Buffington (matt.buffington@usda.gov) at the USDA Parastitic Hymentoptera group using specimens from the U.S. Natural History Museum Smithsonian. Matt uses a system very similar to ours to photograph and stack this super tiny wasp.Sort of an 'enforcer' in the ugly world of carrion-feeding flies, Neralsia here gets down and dirty with these nasty maggots and lays eggs inside of them, eventually killing the host and emerging from the host puparium. We can imagine the fly thinking "I'll eat this dead rat; who is going to find me here?" Well, Neralsia will!