Unexpected

The large silk-covered pupa of a Polyphemus Moth/Antheraea polyphemus. It had been attached to a leaf and fallen to the ground. I’ve seen a few of these over the years, as well as this species’s eggs and caterpillars. I’ve never seen the imago, the adult moth, so I thought I might “raise” this pupa myself.

Well, now.

Look what emerged.

This ginormous wasp! In larval form, this would have eaten the moth caterpillar/pupa, then pupated itself into the adult flying wasp. I think it’s genus Enicospilus; you’d think something so big would be easy to identify, but there are a huge number of ichneumonid wasps out there.