 | This article has an unclear citation style.(January 2021) |
| Campsomeriella thoracica | |
|---|---|
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| Female of a Campsomeriella thoracica | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Scoliidae |
| Genus: | Campsomeriella |
| Species: | C. thoracica |
| Binomial name | |
| Campsomeriella thoracica (Fabricius, 1787) | |
Campsomeriella thoracica is a species of scarab parasitoid wasp that has been recorded in the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
This species exhibits significant Sexual dimorphism. [1] The female's body is a reflective black colour, with two smoky, iridescent pairs of wings. She is between 17 and 22 mm long. She has six legs, and the hind legs are remarkably large, with tough bristles resembling spikes pointing at a downwards angle from the body. The thorax is distinguishable, as it is covered in soft, ginger hair which leads to the common mistaken identity of a bee. On her head is a pair of orange and large compound eyes and three small ocelli, only detecting change in light. She possesses a pair of large, powerful but relatively blunt sickle-shaped mandibles. The compound eyes are well-developed giving the wasp a large field of view. Her antennas are short, and relatively thick. [2] The stinger is 1 mm long.
The Male is very bee-like. His body has an overall grey colour, as opposed to the female's jet-black. His abdomen's patterning consists of alternating reddish-orange and black stripes, [3] typical of many wasps, while western populations lack the orange colouration. [4] Coated with a layer of soft, grey hair, the male's legs are not as muscular as the female's, being thin and lacking the spike-like bristles of the opposite sex. He is only about half her size, and his mandibles are much smaller than hers. He has similarly sized compound eyes, but they are grey instead of orange. On his pygidia are three bristles, and he does not have a stinger. Another key difference is that the Male has much longer antennae than the female, about a third as long as he is. He has two pairs of wings which are hyaline. [5]
Being a solitary wasp species, C. thoracica does not establish hives. The males are gregarious and can be found in small groups, gravitating towards bushes and flowers [6] seeking nectar and can be found around bees. They also patrol the areas, looking for potential females to mate with, using their strong vision to recognise them. Males might engage in minor skirmishes to mate as their population is generally higher than that of the female. [7] The female is solitary and do not gather in small groups like the males do. She scouts the area in search for hosts, particularly scarab beetle larva. She might also create small burrows in order to find her host. This species is harmless to humans. If encountered by humans, the male will fly away or attempt to outmanoeuvre them, while the female will ignore the human, carrying on with her locating of hosts and will fly away to a farther spot if she is approached. She will only sting if mishandled, and is not aggressive. Their sting creates an immediate sharp pain in the area that is stung and the pain subsides after a short while. The sting is not medically significant.
Like other wasps of the family, the female C. thoracica seeks a beetle larvae to attack. She may dig a burrow or encounter the beetle above ground. Using her large mandibles and strong legs, she tackles the grub and with her sharp stinger injects her eggs into the beetle,[ citation needed ] before flying off. The larva hatches after a few days and is white, segmented and mostly featureless, resembling a fly's larva and tapering at both ends. It remains attached to the beetle larva, and feeds on it as it grows. Eventually, it performs the finishing move by consuming all of the grub's internal organs and kills it, before spinning a cocoon and then emerging as the adult.
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism —that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature.
Hornets are the largest of the eusocial wasps, and are similar in appearance to their close relatives yellowjackets. Some species can reach up to 5.5 cm (2.2 in) in length. They are distinguished from other vespine wasps by the relatively large top margin of the head and by the rounded segment of the abdomen just behind the waist. Worldwide, 22 species of Vespa are recognized. Most species only occur in the tropics of Asia, though the European hornet, is widely distributed throughout Europe, Russia, North America, and Northeast Asia. Wasps native to North America in the genus Dolichovespula are commonly referred to as hornets, but are actually yellowjackets.
The Scoliidae, the scoliid wasps, are a family of about 560 species found worldwide. They tend to be black, often marked with yellow or orange, and their wing tips are distinctively corrugated. Males are more slender and elongated than females, with significantly longer antennae, but the sexual dimorphism is not as apparent as in the Tiphiidae.
A tarantula hawk is a spider wasp (Pompilidae) that preys on tarantulas. Tarantula hawks belong to any of the many species in the genera Pepsis and Hemipepsis. They are one of the largest parasitoid wasps, using their sting to paralyze their prey before dragging it to a brood nest as living food; a single egg is laid on the prey, hatching to a larva which eats the still-living prey. They are found on all continents other than Antarctica.
A stinger is a sharp organ found in various animals capable of injecting venom, usually by piercing the epidermis of another animal.
Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large, solitary digger wasp species in the family Crabronidae. The name may be applied to any species of crabronid that preys on cicadas, though in North America, it is typically applied to this species, also referred to as the eastern cicada killer in order to further differentiate it from the multiple other examples of related wasp species. Sometimes, they are called sand hornets, although they are not hornets, which belong to the family Vespidae. This species can be found in the Eastern and Midwest U.S. and southwards into Mexico and Central America. They are so named because they hunt cicadas and provision their nests with them. Cicada killers exert a measure of natural control on cicada populations, and as such they may directly benefit the deciduous trees upon which the cicadas feed.
The Asian giant hornet, including the color form referred to as the Japanese giant hornet, is the world's largest hornet. It is native to temperate and tropical East Asia, South Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, and parts of the Russian Far East. It was also found in the Pacific Northwest of North America in late 2019 with a few more additional sightings in 2020, and nests found in 2021, prompting concern that it could become an invasive species.
The Phoridae are a family of small, hump-backed flies resembling fruit flies. Phorid flies can often be identified by their escape habit of running rapidly across a surface rather than taking to the wing. This behaviour is a source of one of their alternate names, scuttle fly. Another vernacular name, coffin fly, refers to Conicera tibialis. About 4,000 species are known in 230 genera. The most well-known species is cosmopolitan Megaselia scalaris. At 0.4 mm in length, the world's smallest fly is the phorid Euryplatea nanaknihali.
The wattle bagworm is a species of moth in the family Psychidae. In southern Africa it is a pest of the black wattle which is grown largely as a source of vegetable tannin. Kotochalia junodi is indigenous to Southern Africa, where it originally fed on indigenous relatives of the wattle.
This glossary of entomology describes terms used in the formal study of insect species by entomologists.
Eristalis tenax, the common drone fly, is a common, migratory, cosmopolitan species of hover fly. It is the most widely distributed syrphid species in the world, and is known from all regions except the Antarctic. It has been introduced into North America and is widely established. It can be found in gardens and fields in Europe and Australia. It has also been found in the Himalayas.
Cotinis nitida, commonly known as the green June beetle, June bug or June beetle, is a beetle of the family Scarabaeidae. It is found in the eastern United States and Canada, where it is most abundant in the South. It is sometimes confused with the related southwestern species figeater beetle Cotinis mutabilis, which is less destructive.
Bombylius major is a parasitic bee mimic fly. B. major is the most common type of fly within the Bombylius genus. The fly derives its name from its close resemblance to bumblebees and are often mistaken for them.
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors. Wasps that are members of the clade Aculeata can sting their prey.
The mammoth wasp is a very large wasp, with the female reaching up to 6 centimetres (2.4 in), whereas the male is smaller. The species can be seen in warm weather, from May to September.
Mutilla europaea, the large velvet ant, is a species of parasitoid wasps belonging to the family Mutillidae. It is a parasitoid on various species of bumblebees and is found in Europe, Asia and North Africa.
Hemipepsis ustulata is a species of tarantula hawk wasp native to the Southwestern United States. Tarantula hawks are a large, conspicuous family of long-legged wasps which prey on tarantulas. They use their long legs to grapple with their prey before paralyzing them with a powerful sting. Their stings are ranked second-most painful in the insect world. They are solitary, displaying lekking territorial behavior in their mating rituals.
Chrysis ignita, also known as the ruby-tailed wasp, is a species of cuckoo wasps. Cuckoo wasps are kleptoparasites – they lay their eggs in the nests of other wasp species and their young consume the eggs or larva of the host wasp for sustenance. These wasps have a number of adaptions which have evolved to equip them for their life cycle. Chrysis ignita parasitize mason bees in particular. Ruby-tailed wasps have metallic, armored bodies, and can roll up into balls to protect themselves from harm when infiltrating the nests of host bees and wasps. Unlike most other Hymenopterans, cuckoo wasps cannot sting. Chrysis ignita is found across the European continent.
Pepsis grossa is a very large species of pepsine spider wasp from the southern part of North America, south to northern South America. It preys on tarantula spiders, giving rise to the name tarantula hawk for the wasps in the genus Pepsis and the related Hemipepsis. Only the females hunt, so only they are capable of delivering a sting, which is considered the second most painful of any insect sting; scoring 4.0 on the Schmidt sting pain index compared to the bullet ant's 4.0+. It is the state insect of New Mexico. The colour morphs are the xanthic orange-winged form and the melanic black winged form. In northern South America, a third form, known as "lygamorphic", has a dark base to the wings which have dark amber median patches and a pale tip.
Mallophora ruficauda is a species of parasitic robber fly in the family Asilidae, endemic to South and Central America. Like other robber flies, M. rauficauda is known for its aggressive behavior and predation upon other insects, especially bees. M. ruficauda mimics a bumblebee to fool predators into thinking it has a painful sting and is not worth eating.