| Kollasmosoma sentum | |
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| Species: | K. sentum |
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| Kollasmosoma sentum van Achterberg & Gómez, 2011 [1] | |
Kollasmosoma sentum is a parasitoid wasp in the family Braconidae, which lays its eggs inside adult ants. It was featured as one of "the top 10 new species of 2012" in a list compiled by Conservationists at the Arizona State University International Institute for Species Exploration. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
K. sentum is a Palearctic species. [1] The first male of K. sentum was discovered in Orgiva in the province of Granada in Spain. The female holotype was discovered later in August 2010 in Madrid, at the site of the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria followed by the collection of another seven females in September 2010. [1]
K. sentum has a length of 1.8 to 2.1 millimetres (0.071 to 0.083 in) with forewing length from 1.1 to 1.4 millimetres (0.043 to 0.055 in). The antennae of all females have 12 segments. The face is convex and the head is bristly. [1]
K. sentum is black with white features, including the face, clypeus, labrum, malar space (area between the compound eyes and the mandibles), frons (antero-lateral and medial), palps, propleuron, tegulae, basal area of the wing and the front and center legs. [1]
The scape and pedicel of the antenna, and the tarsi of the hind legs are ivory coloured, the tarsi dorsally obscured. The sides of the pronotum have a brown spot laterally; in some individuals the pronotum may be colored brown also extended to the sides. The veins of the nearly transparent wings are brown, the remaining antenna segments, large parts of the humeral plate, the sides of the mesosoma, the parastigma and the pterostigma are colored extended dark brown. The mesosoma is about 10% longer than its height. The first tergite of the metasoma is 0.6 times as long as the width of the apex. [1]
K. sentum can be differentiated from other species of the genus by the following characteristics: [1]
Parasitoidy of the ant Cataglyphis ibericus (Emery, 1906) by K. sentum has been recorded. Female Kollasmosoma wasps, flying singly or in a small group of two to three, scout the entrances of nests of Cataglyphis and areas nearby, during the hottest hours of the day, looking for worker ants on their way out to forage or on the return, laden with food for the nest. These expeditions typically last from half an hour to 90 minutes. Cataglyphis ants move speedily along but have a characteristic pattern of brief halts which are used by the Kollasmosoma for oviposition into the body of the ants. [1]
Cataglyphis ants are wary of these minute parasitoid wasps and, when detected, fend them off using mandibles or with the middle and rear pairs of legs as the wasps appear from the rear. On their part, Kollasmosoma wasps fly rapidly and approach from behind. Cataglyphis ants typically hold their metasoma at an angle which ranges from the horizontal to vertically upward, the latter position being characteristic for the genus. The wasps oviposit on the dorsal or ventral surface of the metasoma, and rarely on the abdominal apex, manoeuvring their body so that the ovipositor thrusts along the posterior-anterior axis of the ant body, a behaviour which suggests that the wasp aims to pierce through the intersegmental membranes. [1]
The oviposition of Cataglyphis ant bodies by female Kollasmosoma wasps is done with great speed, with the complete cycle, comprising first contact, grasping of the ant, and insertion of egg into the metasoma, followed by flight, lasting for an average duration of 0.052 seconds only. [upper-alpha 1] [upper-alpha 2] [7] [8]
Popular Science claims it is one of the most efficient of insect "assassins." [2] One observer notes that these wasps may account for ants' "nervous behavior." [6]
It is still unknown how newly hatched wasps survive in the ant colony. [8]
The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typically its form is adapted to functions such as preparing a place for the egg, transmitting the egg, and then placing it properly. For most insects, the organ is used merely to attach the egg to some surface, but for many parasitic species, it is a piercing organ as well.
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.
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 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 thus fulfill an important role as regulators of insect populations, both in natural and semi-natural systems, making them promising agents for biological control.
The Braconidae are a family of parasitoid wasps. After the closely related Ichneumonidae, braconids make up the second-largest family in the order Hymenoptera, with about 17,000 recognized species and many thousands more undescribed. One analysis estimated a total between 30,000 and 50,000, and another provided a narrower estimate between 42,000 and 43,000 species.
The Eucharitidae are a family of parasitic wasps. Eucharitid wasps are members of the superfamily Chalcidoidea and consist of four subfamilies: Akapalinae, Eucharitinae, Gollumiellinae, and Oraseminae. Most of the 42 genera and >400 species of Eucharitidae are members of the subfamilies Oraseminae and Eucharitinae, and are found in tropical regions of the world.
Megalyroidea is a small hymenopteran superfamily of wasps that includes a single family, Megalyridae, with eight extant genera and 49 described species. Modern megalyrids are found primarily in the southern hemisphere, though fossils have only been found in the northern hemisphere. The most abundant and species-rich megalyrid fauna is in Australia. Another peak of diversity appears to be in the relict forests of Madagascar, but most of these species are still undescribed.
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.
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.
Myanmymar is an extinct genus of fairyfly preserved in Burmese amber from Myanmar. It has only one species, Myanmymar aresconoides. It is dated to the earliest part of the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, around 99 million years old. As of 2011, it is the oldest known fossil mymarid.
Apocrypta is an Old World genus of parasitic fig wasps in the family Pteromalidae. They are parasitoids of gall-wasps in the Sycophagini tribe, and especially Ceratosolen species, pollinators of the Sycomorus, Sycocarpus and Neomorphe sections of Ficus. They seem to be fig species-specific.
Wroughtonia brevicarinata is a species of parasitoid wasp native to the Guizhou and Yunnan provinces of China. The female body is 8.2 millimeters long, with 7.3 millimeter forewings. The ovipositor, when fully extended, measures 5.5 millimeters long. General coloration is black, however, the first tergite is yellow. The fore and mid legs are also yellow, while the hind pair are reddish-brown and whitish-yellow. The antennae are dark brown, with a whitish-yellow stripe between the 11th and 15th flagellomeres No males of the species have been observed to date. The species name is derived from Latin brevi, meaning "short" and carinata, the word for "carina". This literally means that the species has a short dorsal carinae as part of the first tergite.
The Cenocoeliinae are a subfamily of braconid parasitoid wasps.
Hybrizon is the genus in the subfamily Hybrizontinae of ichneumonid parasitoid wasps. The subfamily was previously called Paxylommatinae, and has in the past been considered part Braconidae, or a separate family altogether.
Diachasmimorpha longicaudata is a solitary species of parasitoid wasp and an endoparasitoid of tephritid fruit fly larvae. D. longicaudata is native to many countries in Southeast Asia and subtropical regions and has also been introduced to many other countries as a biological control agent. It is now considered the most extensively used parasitoid for biocontrol of fruit flies in both the southern portion of the United States and Latin America. D. longicaudata is especially useful for agricultural purposes in the control of fruit flies as it is easily mass-reared and has the ability to infect a variety of hosts within the genus Bactrocera. A negative factor in its use as a biocontrol agent is that it is known to oviposit in grapefruit in the state of Florida. This has resulted in quarantines on grapefruit shipped internationally as well as domestically. Research is ongoing to determine whether D. longicaudata is actually a single species, or if it contains multiple species. It is likely multiple biological species separated by both reproductive isolation and morphological characteristics such as wing geometry.
Ivondrovia seyrigi is a species of parasitoid wasp belonging to the subfamily Doryctinae of the family Braconidae. It is endemic to Madagascar.
Zatypota percontatoria is a species of parasitoid wasps that is part of the order Hymenoptera and the family Ichneumonidae responsible for parasitizing arachnids, specifically those of the family Theridiidae.
Liriomyza trifolii, known generally as the American serpentine leafminer or celery leafminer, is a species of leaf miner fly in the family Agromyzidae.
The superfamily Chalcidoidea is a megadiverse group of parasitic wasps that share these features:
