So much of what goes on in the insect world would make brilliant fodder for bad horror movies.

These incredibly tiny parasitic wasps

emerge from the mummified remains of a caterpillar.

That’s right, they all wiggle out of those little holes.  Sam Raimi’s got nothing on evolution.

Since all of the Gypsy moth caterpillars from the greenhouse experiment are now dead or pupated, I’ve been organizing things.  First I took all of the emerged moths out of the freezer and put them into little glass vials.

Obviously they’re all dead - the ones that say “dead” are the ones that didn’t make it to adulthood, but died along the way.  Now I’m working on organizing the lab’s parasitoid collection (hence the horror movie intro).  I’m taking this

and turning it into this

which entails dividing into species and then subdividing into gender, and finally subdividing once more into host groups. A large part of this work had previously been done, and then partially undone in the effort to identify species and subspecies, so it’s not as though I just have a jumble of random wasps to work with.  I’d have offed myself by now.

All of this seems particularly appropriate right now with the wasp bloom we’re experiencing in Toronto this summer.

I meant to get the last of my zoo photos posted ages ago, but between school, catching up with friends I hadn’t seen for months, and working in the greenhouse, my photo processing got rather behind.  Here are my favourites of the last batch, and you’ll find the rest in the Zoo album in my gallery.

If you haven’t checked out my gallery recently, you might want to mosey on over there to see some of the photos I’ve taken over the summer.  Here are a few of the most recent additions:

If you’re not my mom, you can also look at my most recently completed pottery project here, here, here and here.  If you are my mom, don’t go there because you will ruin your birthday surprise.

In other, nerdier news, I am terribly excited to start my new classes next week.  It should be a fun year, with three chemistry classes, a smattering of bio, and some english and stats thrown in for good measure.  Anyone want to buy me a new netbook for school?