Agriocnemis pygmaea (Pygmy Wisp/Wandering Midget)

Agriocnemis pygmaea is distributed across Asia and parts of Australia where we found ours on FNQ 2022. It is very small and keeps low; my pictures are not the clearest. My V1 of the Australian book assigns Pygmy Wisp as the common name but iNaturalist refers to Wandering Midget.

The males look painfully similar to Argiocnemis rubescens and given that the genus name varies only in the transposing of an “r” and a “g”, some care is needed in naming as well as identification. Females, which I haven’t knowingly seen, exhibit various colour morphs including a red form and an androchrome form.

male