Ensign Wasp

Urban and suburban indoor environments, particularly where cockroaches are present; also found outdoors in leaf litter and tree hollows.

Adults feed on nectar and honeydew; larvae are predators/parasitoids that consume the eggs inside cockroach oothecae.

Notable for rhythmically bobbing their small, flat, flag-like abdomens up and down as they walk. They are solitary and hunt for cockroach egg cases to deposit a single egg within.

Highly beneficial to humans as they act as a natural biological control against cockroach populations; they do not sting or bite humans and are harmless.