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| Gasteruption jaculator | |
|---|---|
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| Female | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Gasteruptiidae |
| Genus: | Gasteruption |
| Species: | G. jaculator |
| Binomial name | |
| Gasteruption jaculator | |
| Synonyms | |
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Gasteruption jaculator is a species of wasp in the family Gasteruptiidae.
This species is mainly present in Austria, Belgium, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, in the eastern Palearctic realm, and in the Near East. [1]
The head and thorax are completely black. The head is strongly rounded, the thorax is elongated in a sort of long neck ( propleura ), which separates the head from the body. Also the abdomen is strongly stretched, broader at the posterior end and placed on the upper chest ( propodeum ). The colour of the abdomen is black, with reddish-orange rings. The tibiae of the hind legs are club shaped. In the female the ovipositor is usually very long with a white tip. In resting position, these wasps slowly and rhythmically raise and lower the abdomen.
The female of this parasitic wasp lays its eggs on the body of larvae of solitary bees or wasps using its long ovipositor. Upon hatching, its larvae will devour grubs and its victim's supplies of pollen and nectar. The adults grow up to 10–17 millimetres (0.39–0.67 in) long and can mostly be encountered from May through September feeding on Apiaceae species.
Gasteruption jaculator has been found visiting various flowers, or hovering around the nests of solitary bees and wasps in gardens and meadows. The species is commonly found during May to September.
Sawflies are wasp-like insects that are in the suborder Symphyta within the order Hymenoptera, alongside ants, bees, and wasps. The common name comes from the saw-like appearance of the ovipositor, which the females use to cut into the plants where they lay their eggs. The name is associated especially with the Tenthredinoidea, by far the largest superfamily in the suborder, with about 7,000 known species; in the entire suborder, there are 8,000 described species in more than 800 genera. Symphyta is paraphyletic, consisting of several basal groups within the order Hymenoptera, each one rooted inside the previous group, ending with the Apocrita which are not sawflies.
Apocrita is a suborder of insects in the order Hymenoptera. It includes wasps, bees, and ants, and consists of many families. It contains the most advanced hymenopterans and is distinguished from Symphyta by the narrow "waist" (petiole) formed between the first two segments of the actual abdomen; the first abdominal segment is fused to the thorax, and is called the propodeum. Therefore, it is general practice, when discussing the body of an apocritan in a technical sense, to refer to the mesosoma and metasoma rather than the "thorax" and "abdomen", respectively. The evolution of a constricted waist was an important adaption for the parasitoid lifestyle of the ancestral apocritan, allowing more maneuverability of the female's ovipositor. The ovipositor either extends freely or is retracted, and may be developed into a stinger for both defense and paralyzing prey. Larvae are legless and blind, and either feed inside a host or in a nest cell provisioned by their mothers.
The Gasteruptiidae are one of the more distinctive families among the apocritan wasps, with surprisingly little variation in appearance for a group that contains around 500 species in two subfamilies and with six genera worldwide. They are members of Evanioidea.
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.
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