| Homonotus sanguinolentus | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Pompilidae |
| Genus: | Homonotus |
| Species: | H. sanguinolentus |
| Binomial name | |
| Homonotus sanguinolentus (Fabricius, 1793) | |
| Synonyms [1] | |
| |
Homonotus sanguinolentus, the bloody spider-hunting wasp [2] is a European species of Pompilid wasp.
Homonotus sanguinolentus preys on one species of spider, Cheiracanthium erraticum , which lives on the damper patches of heathlands. From late June until August the female spider spins a purse-like web using vegetation such as heather inflorescences and grass flowering stems. [3] She remains this web until her eggs are laid and the young hatched. A hunting female H. sanguinolentus will force entry into the spider's purse-web and if it discovers a gravid female spider, the wasp quickly paralyses the spider by stinging it. H. sanguinolentus lays its own egg on the front of the spider's abdomen and the spider recovers from the paralysis but it never leaves the web again, nor does she lay eggs. After three days the egg of H. sanguinolentus hatches and the larva feeds on the spider, finally killing it after about ten days. The H. sanguinolentus larva then spins its cocoon within the spider's purse-web. The purse-web has to remain intact and above the ground until the following July when the new adult H. sanguinolentus emerge. [4]
Heathlands but with an open canopy of heathers with taller vegetation.
Southern and central Europe, north to southern England, Germany and Poland. [5] In the north of its range this is a highly thermophilic species. In the United Kingdom it is a Biodiversity Action Plan species.
Wasps in the family Pompilidae are commonly called spider wasps, spider-hunting wasps, or pompilid wasps. The family is cosmopolitan, with some 5,000 species in six subfamilies. Nearly all species are solitary, and most capture and paralyze prey, though members of the subfamily Ceropalinae are kleptoparasites of other pompilids, or ectoparasitoids of living spiders.
Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga is a Costa Rican parasitoid wasp whose host is the spider Plesiometa argyra. The wasp is unusual in modifying the spider's web building behavior to make a web made of very strong lines designed to support the wasp's cocoon without breaking in the rain.
The silver-studded blue is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It has bright blue wings rimmed in black with white edges and silver spots on its hindwings, lending it the name of the silver-studded blue. P. argus can be found across Europe and east across the Palearctic, but is most often studied in the United Kingdom in which the species has experienced a severe decline in population due to habitat loss and fragmentation.
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.
Philanthus triangulum, commonly known as the European beewolf, bee-killer wasp or the bee-eating philanthus, is a solitary wasp that lives in the Western Palearctic and Afrotropics. Although the adults of the species are herbivores, the species derives its name from the behaviour of the inseminated females, who hunt Western honey bees. The female places several of its paralysed prey together with an egg in a small underground chamber, to serve as food for the wasp larvae. All members of the genus Philanthus hunt various species of bees, but P. triangulum is apparently the only one that specialises in Western honey bees.
Atypus affinis, the purseweb spider, is a common mygalomorph spider from Europe.
Segestria florentina is the biggest European segestriid spider. Some vernacular names are green-fanged tube web spider and cellar spider, although the latter is not exclusive to this species.
Ammophila sabulosa, the red-banded sand wasp, is a species of the subfamily Ammophilinae of the solitary hunting wasp family Sphecidae, also called digger wasps. Found across Eurasia, the parasitoid wasp is notable for the mass provisioning behaviour of the females, hunting caterpillars mainly on sunny days, paralysing them with a sting, and burying them in a burrow with a single egg. The species is also remarkable for the extent to which females parasitise their own species, either stealing prey from nests of other females to provision their own nests, or in brood parasitism, removing the other female's egg and laying one of her own instead.
Episyron quinquenotatus, the white-trimmed black wasp, is a North American species of pompilid spider hunting wasp.
The common rain spider, formerly P. natalius, is a species of huntsman spider native to Southern Africa. It is the most common and widespread species in the genus Palystes. In South Africa its distribution ranges from KwaZulu-Natal province in the east, then westwards to the provinces of Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and North West in the north, and Eastern Cape and Western Cape in the south. It has a body length of 15–36 mm and a leg span of up to 110mm. The species was first described by Ludwig Carl Christian Koch in 1875.
Ceropales maculata is a kleptoparasitic spider wasp found in the holoarctic region.
Aporus unicolor, common name cutpurse, is a highly specialised spider hunting wasp from the family Pompilidae.
Epipompilus insularis is a species of spider wasp which is endemic to New Zealand and it is the only species of the genus Epipompilus found in New Zealand.
Palystes is a genus of huntsman spiders, commonly called rain spiders or lizard-eating spiders, occurring in Africa, India, Australia, and the Pacific. The most common and widespread species is P. superciliosus, found in South Africa, home to 12 species in the genus. The name Palystes is derived from either the Latin palaestes or the Greek palaistes, meaning "wrestler". The genus was first described by Ludwig Carl Christian Koch in 1875.
Arachnospila trivialis is a widespread spider wasp of sandy soil areas of the Palaearctic.
Anoplius viaticus, commonly known as the black-banded spider wasp, is a species of spider wasp. These wasps are known as spider wasps because the females capture spiders to provide their offspring with food. The paralysed spider is cached in a burrow, the wasp lays an egg on it, and when this hatches, the developing wasp larva consumes the spider. This species is found in sandy heathland across most of Europe.
Cheiracanthium erraticum, the two-clawed hunting spider, is a species of Palearctic spider of the family Cheiracanthiidae.
Oxyopes heterophthalmus is a lynx spider from the family Oxyopidae, it is the type species of the genus Oxyopes and was described by Pierre André Latreille in 1804, it has a Palearctic distribution.
Allochares azureus is a species of spider wasp from the family Pompilidae, it is the only member of the monotypic genus Allochares. It occurs in the southern part of North America and is a specialist parasitoid of the Southern house spider.
Mantispa styriaca, the Styrian praying lacewing, is a species of predatory mantidfly native to Europe. It is a yellow-brown insect as an adult and has multiple larval stages.
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