English: Ichneumons are much like their cousins, the stinging wasps, only slenderer and with longer antennae. The females usually have dramatically long ovipositors (a needlelike or filament-like appendage at the tip of the abdomen used for laying eggs). The superfamily Ichneumonoidea has been estimated to contain well over 80,000 different species. Colors vary, with some being drab and others brightly colored or patterned. Some have black and yellow bands like stinging wasps. Female ichneumons can be seen wandering over tree trunks, using their antennae to seek the larvae of wood-boring insects below the bark; detecting one, the female inserts her long ovipositor through the wood and lays eggs in the larva. Her young hatch and devour their host, pupate, and emerge to begin the cycle again.