Well I'll be.........

[Karol]

I always thought Ichneumon wasps such as the one in the picture were harmless. If the one in the picture looks a bit mangled it's because it crawled up inside my daughter's trouser leg whilst she was gardening and stung her! Very painful sting albeit relatively short lived after heat treatment.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Interesting.
It certainly looks worse for wear now!

 

[Antipodes]

I always thought Ichneumon wasps such as the one in the picture were harmless. If the one in the picture looks a bit mangled it's because it crawled up inside my daughter's trouser leg whilst she was gardening and stung her! Very painful sting albeit relatively short lived after heat treatment.

I thought they were too.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

maybe a bite rather than a sting?

 

[Karol]

Always a possibility but in this case definitely a sting. Mandibles leave a tiny slit in the skin. This was distinctly a pin prick injury consistent with a sting. On closer inspection there's a pretty impressive stinger protruding from the wasp's abdomen.

 

[masterBK]

That was (since now dead) a female yellow Ophion which uses its oviposititor (which you referred to as a stinger) to inject its eggs into the caterpillars of Noctuid moths. It will also use it in defence against vertebrates including humans if it feels threatened and is one of the few ischneumons that actually sting..

 

[Karol]

As with eusocial vespine wasps the stinger in the Ophion wasp has evolved from an ovipositor and the poison sack has evolved from an ovary but they are now distinct organs so the stinger in an Ophion wasp is incapable of producing eggs:

https://images.app.goo.gl/rePXeyucMsCVeBz96