Self-Recognition by the Parasitic Wasp Itoplectis naranyae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae)

«Self-recognition», an ability of female parasitoids to discriminate between hosts parasitized by themselves and those parasitized by other conspecific females, was tested in the ichnuemonid wasp Itoplectis naranyae. The question of whether selfrecognition can be interpreted as kin recognition was then focused on. I. naranyae females were able to recognize self-parasitized hosts externally when they encountered them within a 30 min delay after the first parasitization; females strongly avoided superparasitism of self-parasitized hosts but not of conspecifically parasitized hosts. The intensity of self-superparasitism avoidance was strongly time dependent after the first parasitization, and also depended on the host density which females had experienced. Females avoided superparasitism either of conspecifically or of self-parasitized hosts internally gradually with time elapsed