| Gonatocerus tuberculifemur | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Mymaridae |
| Genus: | Gonatocerus |
| Species: | G. tuberculifemur |
| Binomial name | |
| Gonatocerus tuberculifemur (Ogloblin, 1957) | |
Gonatocerus tuberculifemur is a species of fairyfly. It is an egg parasitoid of Tapajosa rubromarginata, a leafhopper. [1]
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes.
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation.
The Tachinidae are a large and variable family of true flies within the insect order Diptera, with more than 8,200 known species and many more to be discovered. Over 1,300 species have been described in North America alone. Insects in this family commonly are called tachinid flies or simply tachinids. As far as is known, they all are protelean parasitoids, or occasionally parasites, of arthropods, usually other insects. The family is known from many habitats in all zoogeographical regions and is especially diverse in South America.
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 superfamily Ichneumonoidea contains one extinct and three extant families, including the two largest families within Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae and Braconidae. The group is thought to contain as many as 100,000 species, many of which have not yet been described. Like other parasitoid wasps, they were long placed in the "Parasitica", variously considered as an infraorder or an unranked clade, now known to be paraphyletic.
The Ichneumonidae, also known as ichneumon wasps, ichneumonid wasps, ichneumonids, or Darwin wasps, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 25,000 species described as of 2016. However, this likely represents less than a quarter of their true richness as reliable estimates are lacking, along with much of the most basic knowledge about their ecology, distribution, and evolution. It is estimated that there are more species in this family than there are species of birds and mammals combined. Ichneumonid wasps, with very few exceptions, attack the immature stages of holometabolous insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts. They play an important role as regulators of insect populations, both in natural and semi-natural systems, making them promising agents for biological control.
An ootheca is a type of egg capsule made by any member of a variety of species including mollusks, mantises, and cockroaches.
The glassy-winged sharpshooter is a large leafhopper, similar to other species of sharpshooter.
Brochosomes are intricately structured microscopic granules secreted by leafhoppers and typically found on their body surface and, more rarely, eggs. Brochosomes were first described in 1952 with the aid of an electron microscope. Brochosomes are hydrophobic and help keep the insect cuticle clean. These particles have also been found in samples of air and can easily contaminate foreign objects, which explains erroneous reports of brochosomes on other insects.
The Mymaridae, commonly known as fairyflies or fairy wasps, are a family of chalcidoid wasps found in temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions throughout the world. The family contains around 100 genera with 1,400 species.
Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causing the death of these hosts. Different species specialise in hosts from different insect orders, most often Lepidoptera, though some select beetles, flies, or bugs; the spider wasps (Pompilidae) exclusively attack spiders.
Trigonalidae is a family of parasitic wasps in the suborder Apocrita. They are the only living members of the superfamily Trigonaloidea. Trigonalidae are divided into 2 subfamilies; Orthogonalinae and Trigonalinae. These wasps are extremely rare, but surprisingly diverse, with over 90 species in 16 genera, and are known from all parts of the world. It is possibly the sister group to all Aculeata.
The Tetracampidae are a small family of parasitic wasps in the superfamily Chalcidoidea. They are parasitoids of phytophagous insects, primarily flies. The 44 species in 15 genera are almost entirely absent from the New World.
Evaniidae is a family of parasitoid wasps also known as ensign wasps, nightshade wasps, hatchet wasps, or cockroach egg parasitoid wasps. They number around 20 extant genera containing over 400 described species, and are found all over the world except in the polar regions. The larvae of these solitary wasps are parasitoids that feed on cockroaches and develop inside the egg-cases, or oothecae, of their hosts.
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.
Oobius agrili is a parasitic non-stinging wasp of family Encyrtidae which is native to North Asia. It is a parasitoid of the emerald ash borer, an invasive species which has destroyed tens of millions of ash trees in its introduced range in North America. As part of the campaign against the emerald ash borer (EAB), American scientists in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Forestry searched since 2003 for its natural enemies in the wild leading to the discovery of several parasitoid wasps, including Oobius agrili, which is a solitary egg parasitoid of EAB found on ash trees in Jilin province in 2004; it has been recorded to kill up to 60 percent of EAB eggs.
Gonatocerus triguttatus is a species of fairyfly. It is an egg parasitoid of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis. It was originally described from Caroni County, Trinidad.
Gonatocerus ashmeadi is a species of fairyfly. Its natural range is Florida, Louisiana, northeastern Mexico, Mississippi, North Carolina, eastern Texas, and southern and central California.
Anaphes nitens is a species of fairyfly, a chalcid wasp in the family Mymaridae. Native to Australia, it is an egg parasitoid of the gum tree snout beetle, a pest of Eucalyptus trees, and has been used in biological pest control of that species.
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