Three tiny teeth, and Kashmir has a wasp the world has never seen

On the campus of the University of Kashmir, sweep nets brushed through field grass — and caught something science had never named. A team led by the University of Kashmir and the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, working with colleagues in Saudi Arabia, has described a brand-new wasp, Homoporus tridentata, in the Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society. It is barely 3.9 millimetres long, metallic green, and named for the three tiny teeth on the shield above its mouth. It is the first member of its genus ever recorded in northern India. Wasps like this quietly hunt the larvae of flies, moths and beetles that damage crops and forests, so giving this one a name is practical as well as joyful: it lays groundwork for kinder, nature-based pest control in the Himalayan foothills, and shows how much life is still waiting to be noticed close to home.

SDG 15 · Life on land