Polynem saga (Girault, 1911)

Description:

Chalcidoidea, Mymaridae, Non-type female (slide-mounted specimen)Collected in South AfricaP. saga is one of the 90 Polynema species described by Arsene Girault. Girault, a controversial figure who often included philosophical and political comments in his privately published papers, also famously described a Polynema-like fictional chalcidoid which he dedicated, as an insult, to J.F. Illingworth, his manager at the time: "Shillingsworthia: Like Polynema but petiole, head, abdomen, mandibles absent. S. shillingsworthii, blank, vacant, inaneness perfect. Nulliebiety remarkable, visible only from certain points of view. Shadowless. An airy species whose flight cannot be followed except by the winged mind. From a naked chasm on Jupiter, August 5th, 1919."Photograph by Natalie Dale-Skey