Lightest wasp

The lightest wasp is Caraphractus cinctus, a tiny species of parasitic chalcid wasp known as a fairyfly. It can sometimes weigh as little as 0.005 mg, which means that it would take 5,670,000 of these wasps together to weigh just a single ounce. It is an aquatic freshwater species, widely distributed through Europe. It parasitizes the eggs of water beetles, and uses its wings as paddles to swim around. Although very common, and numbering some 1,400 species worldwide – inhabiting both temperate and tropical regions – fairyflies (also called fairy wasps) are not noticed a great deal by humans because of their tiny size. Also, the adult wasps have only very short lifetimes: just a few days at most.