Did You Know That Parasitic Wasp Is The Smallest Insect On Earth?

There are nearly a million different kinds of insects on Earth. The smallest of all the known ones are the tiny wasps often called fairyflies.

Fairyflies or fairy wasps are a family of chalcid wasps found in temperate and tropical regions throughout the world.

Finding a fairyfly would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. You’d have to keep your eye sharp and out.

They are very tiny insects, mostly ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 mm long, and include the world’s smallest known insect with a body length of only 0.139 mm and the smallest known flying insect, only 0.15 mm long.

Fairy flies are nearly 400 times smaller than the typical ant. And they are about two or three times the width of a human hair. They are almost impossible to spot with the naked eye.

Many people around the globe may not even have the slightest idea what a parasitic wasp is. They are rarely noticed by humans because of their extremely small sizes. Their adult lifespans are very short, usually only a few days.

Fairyflies feed on other insects as they hatch. Even as adults their reliance on other insects is critical, as they feed on eggs of other insects. Fairy wasps are, thus, used as a means to control the population of pests like flies, leafhoppers, and booklice.

This use of the fairyfly has been done in New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii among other countries

Scientists often use nets or traps to catch the wasps. Sometimes they have to sift through dirt and litter, or decaying leaf matter, a teaspoon at a time to see what they can find.

Sometimes they also use what they know about the insect’s behavior and habitat to help track them down.