# Insect Identification Help
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 5, 2003, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791 "2003-01-05T17:38:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Nickrz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nickrz)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/1 "2003-01-05T17:38:37Z")
Hi guys. Your assignment for the day, should you decide to accept it, is to take
a gander at this bug and see if you can identify it to the (ideally) species level.
If not species, genus will do.
[Unidentified Insect](http://www.cirrusimage.com/unidentified_arthropods.htm)
I will be forever grateful to anyone who can help me out.
I’ve looked high and low on the web - the trouble being,
I don’t know if this is a wasp, or a fly, or what. Thanks!
Nick
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### Author:  [@jack\_ss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jack_ss)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/2 "2003-01-05T18:54:16Z")
I’m guessing wasp myself. It’s really tiny, right?
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### Author:  [@Anomalocaris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomalocaris)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/3 "2003-01-05T18:56:48Z")
Looks like a Sawlfy (Order Hymenoptera) but would need to see more detail (genitalia, tarsii, etc.) to bring it down to family and genus.
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### Author:  [@Anomalocaris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomalocaris)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/4 "2003-01-05T18:58:04Z")
Sawfly, I mean. It is a type of wasp.
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/5 "2003-01-05T19:08:53Z")
That thing sticking out the back seems way too big to be a stinger. Is it an ovipositor?
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### Author:  [@Emperor\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emperor_Penguin)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/6 "2003-01-05T20:02:22Z")
Judging by the configuration of the thorax (triangular pronotum, extending to wing joint) presence of ovipositor, lack of stinger, threadlike antennea, etc. I would say that this is a member of the Ichneumonidae family, order Hymenoptera
It might be this little[guy](http://www.discoverlife.org/nh/tx/Insecta/Hymenoptera/Ichneumonoidea/Ichneumonidae/Pimplinae/#Natural%20History) but the abdomen seems too narrow
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### Author:  [@Nickrz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nickrz)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/7 "2003-01-05T20:47:51Z")
HYMENOPTERA: ICHNEUMONIDAE
Yup. It’s one of those, I think. But I looked at dozens of them at this site: [Insects of Cedar Creek](http://www.cedarcreek.umn.edu/insects/albumframes/025frame.html)
and I can’t seem to match it with anything. DAMMIT.
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### Author:  [@Emperor\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emperor_Penguin)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/8 "2003-01-05T21:13:40Z")
I looked at every single bug on that page and I saw nothing that I would say matches. I think the closest I can hope to get is the family name. I will leave the rest to someone with far more patience 🙂
It occurs to me that I have just spent the past hour trying to identify a bug that I will probably never ever see again in my life. It also occurs to me that it was the most interesting hour I have spent in quite sometime. I am such a geek!
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### Author:  [@Nickrz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nickrz)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insect-identification-help/146791/9 "2003-01-06T00:06:26Z")
Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, thanks for your help, all.
Maybe Cecil will take pity on a poor amateur entomologist…