A tea bush at Nahortoli Tea Estate has turned out to be the home address of a wasp science had not yet certified. Researchers from the Zoological Survey of India, the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at Canada's University of Guelph, and the Kalinga Foundation have described it as a new species, Chelonus (Carinichelonus) mahadeb, named for the deity of creation and destruction.

The wasp belongs to Carinichelonus, a rare subgenus within the family Braconidae; this is only the second new species from that group described in India. A close relative, Chelonus siangensis, previously known only from Arunachal Pradesh, was also recorded in the same survey at Chubwa Tea Estate, extending its known range into Assam.

By trade, the wasp is a parasitoid: it lays its eggs inside the eggs of moths and butterflies, and the larva that hatches consumes its host from within. Many of those hosts are caterpillars that feed on tea bushes, so the wasp does, unpaid and uncertified, a job any garden manager would want done: it keeps the leaf-eating insects down.

The find adds to a run of new species turning up in Assam's tea country. Researchers noted that the small size and taxonomic difficulty of insects like Chelonus mean the Brahmaputra valley's gardens likely hold more undescribed species still working the same shift.

This office certifies strength in the cup, not a garden's insect life. But a bush that hosts its own undocumented pest control is a fact worth weighing and measuring all the same.

Sources: EastMojo, New parasitic wasp species discovered in Assam tea estate; Ki Hikila, New Parasitic Wasp Species Found in Assam Reveals Rich Biodiversity.