| Isodontia | |
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| Isodontia mexicana | |
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| Tribe: | Sphecini |
| Genus: | Isodontia (Patton, 1880) |
Isodontia is a genus belonging to the family Sphecidae. Adults emerge from their cocoons in early summer, and usually make nests lined with grass or hay in hollow plant cavities. This has led to their common name being grass-carrying wasps. The larvae are often fed Orthoptera that the adult has paralyzed. [1]
Species within this genus include: [2]
The Strepsiptera are an order of insects with eleven extant families that include about 600 described species. They are endoparasites of other insects, such as bees, wasps, leafhoppers, silverfish, and cockroaches. Females of most species never emerge from the host after entering its body, finally dying inside it. The early-stage larvae do emerge because they must find an unoccupied living host, and the short-lived males must emerge to seek a receptive female in her host. They are believed to be most closely related to beetles, from which they diverged 300–350 million years ago, but do not appear in the fossil record until the mid-Cretaceous around 100 million years ago.
Hornets are the largest of the eusocial wasps, and are similar in appearance to yellowjackets, their close relatives. 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. 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 north-eastern Asia. Wasps native to North America in the genus Dolichovespula are commonly referred to as hornets, but all of them are actually yellowjackets.
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.
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 Sphecidae are a cosmopolitan family of wasps of the suborder Apocrita that includes sand wasps, mud daubers, and other thread-waisted wasps.
The gray-headed kite is a raptor found in open woodland and swamp forests. It shares the genus Leptodon with the extremely rare white-collared kite. It breeds from eastern Mexico and Trinidad south to Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and northern Argentina.
Ophrys insectifera, the fly orchid, is a species of orchid and the type species of the genus Ophrys. It is remarkable as an example of the use of sexually deceptive pollination and floral mimicry, as well as a highly selective and highly evolved plant–pollinator relationship.
Nomadinae is a subfamily of bees in the family Apidae. They are known commonly as cuckoo bees.
Phyllophaga is a very large genus of New World scarab beetles in the subfamily Melolonthinae. Common names for this genus and many other related genera in the subfamily Melolonthinae are May beetles, June bugs, and July beetles. They range in size from 12 to 35 mm and are blackish or reddish-brown in colour, without prominent markings, and often rather hairy ventrally. These beetles are nocturnal, and are attracted to artificial lights in great numbers.
The forest ringlet, also known as Helms' butterfly, or te pēpepe pōuri or pepe pouri in the Māori language, is a rare butterfly of the family Nymphalidae endemic to New Zealand. It is the only species in the genus Dodonidia.
Commonly known as cuckoo wasps or emerald wasps, the hymenopteran family Chrysididae is a very large cosmopolitan group of parasitoid or kleptoparasitic wasps, often highly sculptured, with brilliant metallic colors created by structural coloration. They are most diverse in desert regions of the world, as they are typically associated with solitary bee and wasp species, which are also most diverse in such areas. Their brood parasitic lifestyle has led to the evolution of fascinating adaptations, including chemical mimicry of host odors by some species.
Dryinidae is a cosmopolitan family of solitary wasps. Its name comes from the Greek drys for oak: Latreille named the type genus Dryinus because the first species was collected on an oak tree in Spain. The larvae are parasitoids of the nymphs and adults of Auchenorrhyncha. Dryinidae comprises over 1900 described species, distributed in 11 extant subfamilies and 57 genera.
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.
Isodontia mexicana, the Mexican grass-carrying wasp, is a species of insect belonging to the family Sphecidae. It is mainly found throughout North America, but has become established in Europe, primarily France, Switzerland, Hungary, Italy, Serbia, and Spain.
Ceratosolen is an Old World wasp genus in the family Agaonidae. They are pollinators of the monoecious fig subsections Sycomorus and Sycocarpus, and the section Neomorphe, all belonging to the subgenus Sycomorus. The genus is native to the Palearctic, Afrotropical, Indomalayan and Australasian realms.
Polybia sericea is a social, tropical wasp of the family Vespidae that can be found in South America. It founds its colonies by swarming migrations, and feeds on nectar and arthropods.
Isodontia exornata is a species of thread-waisted wasp in the family Sphecidae.
Isodontia elegans, also known as the elegant grass-carrying wasp, is a species of solitary, nest-provisioning, thread-waisted wasp in the family Sphecidae that hunts orthopterans.
Isodontia apicalis is a species of thread-waisted wasp in the family Sphecidae from North and Central America.
Muhlenbergia frondosa is a species of plants in the genus Muhlenbergia and a member of the grass family. Its common name is Common satin grass or Wirestem muhly. It is informally grouped with other satin grasses, which are other species in Muhlenbergia. It is a warm-season C4-photosynthetic grass.
