I feel as if I’m standing at the top of a very slippery slope, at the bottom of which is a chasm filled with aphids and their parasites! I say this because I’m finding that these are creatures that have been little studied, are very tricky to identify, and thus could easily become a bottomless pit of specimens I’m frustratingly unable to put a name to. (I already have two jars on my windowsill with parasitised aphids inside, waiting to see what emerges.) I really really should back away from the edge of that slippery slope right now but, before I do, here are some photos I’ve already taken, of what are known as ‘aphid mummies’. The aphids have had eggs laid in them by parasitic wasps, whose larvae have slowly eaten their host while it was still alive, then pupated and emerged as adult wasps – you can see the tiny holes where they’ve left their mummies.