![Thumbnail: [Volume 80, 1952 page 161]](/journals/rsnz/images/rsnz_80/thumbnails/rsnz_80_02_0335_0161_ac_02.gif)
Gourlay (loc. cit.) records L. excelsa as attacking the host larvae, parasitic larvae emerging from the host larvae to pupate.
In dealing with the Pimplini as a group, Townes states “oviposition is into prepupae, or into freshly formed pupae that may be entirely naked or enclosed in a dense cocoon, but subterranean pupae or those well protected in burrows, in twigs or weeds, are not attacked.” Species of Pimpla are known occasionally to parasitize active larvae. Others again are often secondary parasites usually upon the larvae of other Pimplini. They are, according to Townes, solitary internal parasites in the host pupae and the adult emerges through a hole gnawed in the anterior end of the pupae. It would appear that Lissopimpla are somewhat different in their host relationship, but little direct information is available on the habits of L. excelsa in New Zealand. Froggatt (1912, p. 12) states that in Australia this species is a useful parasite which destroys cut-worms and many other moth caterpillars.
The Instructor of Agriculture at Whangarei collected specimens of L. excelsa from pasture areas in the citrus growing district of Keri Keri early in June, 1946.
He stated, “Severe attacks of caterpillars (army or cut-worm types) have occurred and these insects (L. excelsa) have been found extensively in the same localities. Farmers associate these with the caterpillars and suggest they lay their eggs in pupae of the caterpillars.” The specimens of L. excelsa sent with the above statement are in the D.S.I.R. Entomology Collections, No. 1465.
![Thumbnail: [Volume 80, 1952 page 162]](/journals/rsnz/images/rsnz_80/thumbnails/rsnz_80_02_0336_0162_ac_02.gif)
Another instance of L. excelsa associated with the outbreak of army or cutworms comes from Mr. C. W. Flavell, of East Cape School, Gisborne, early in March, 1940. “Several specimens collected from a maize crop which was overrun with cut-worms. There are thousands of these reddish insects (L. semipunctata) hovering over the maize crop.”
Miller (loc. cit.) states, “When parasitising a victim the ovipositor is swung downwards at right-angles to the abdomen.”
Coleman (1928 and 1929) observed males of L. excelsa visiting flowers of an Australian orchid, Cryptostylis leptochila, and considered that these males were deceived by the form and colour of the flowers, mistaking them for females of their species, and were apparently trying to copulate under this impression. They surrounded the flowers in large numbers and competition was so keen that they were often seen struggling together to copulate with individual flowers. The insects enter the flowers backwards and thus carry off the pollen on the tip of the abdomen. That author saw only the males visiting the orchid and observed that it might be assumed that here we have an example of the flowers of a plant so modified in structure as to mimic the females of an insect species, in order that they obtain the services of the males as a pollenating agent. Whatever may be the correct interpretation of Mrs. Coleman's observations, such points as these open up a wide field of conjecture and are of intense interest.
Fig. 4—Relative seasonal abundance of adults of Lissopimpla excelsa Collections made over the last thirty years were tabulated by months and the graph constructed from the resulting frequency distribution, Total number of specimens from which data were obtained was 82.