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The Mutillidae are a family of more than 7,000 species of wasps whose wingless females resemble large, hairy ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair, which most often is bright scarlet or orange, but may also be black, white, silver, or gold. Their bright colors serve as aposematic signals. They are known for their extremely painful stings,, hence the common name cow killer or cow ant. However, mutillids are not aggressive and sting only in defense. In addition, the actual toxicity of their venom is much lower than that of honey bees or harvester ants. Unlike true ants, they are solitary, and lack complex social systems.
Paper wasps are vespid wasps that gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct nests made of gray or brown papery material. Some types of paper wasps are also sometimes called umbrella wasps, due to the distinctive design of their nests.
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 Vespoidea are a superfamily of wasps in the order Hymenoptera, although older taxonomic schemes may vary in this categorization, particularly in their recognition of a now-obsolete superfamily Scolioidea, as well as the relationship to ants. Vespoidea includes wasps with a large variety of lifestyles; eusocial, social, and solitary habits, predators, scavengers, parasitoids, and some herbivores.
The Eucharitidae are a family of parasitic wasps. Eucharitid wasps are members of the superfamily Chalcidoidea and consist of three subfamilies: Oraseminae, Eucharitinae, and Gollumiellinae. Most of the 55 genera and 417 species of Eucharitidae are members of the subfamilies Oraseminae and Eucharitinae, and are found in tropical regions of the world.
Bembix rostrata is a protected species of sand wasp native to Central Europe. The genus Bembix - of which B. rostrata is among the most distinctive species - has over 340 species worldwide and is found mostly in warm regions with open, sandy soils; Australia and Africa have a particularly rich variety of species.
The wasp genus Dasymutilla belongs to the family Mutillidae. The females of the genus are well known for their painful sting, which is where many gain their common name of cow killer. Females are wingless and resemble large ants while the males possess wings. The larvae are external parasites to various types of ground-nesting Hymenoptera.
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 their common ancestor is shared by bees and ants. Many wasps, those in the clade Aculeata, can sting their insect prey.
Crematogaster ashmeadi, commonly known as the acrobat ant, is an arboreal ant widespread in the Southeastern United States. It nests and forages almost exclusively above ground level, often found in treetops and on lianas. It is one of eleven species in the genus Crematogaster that is native to eastern North America. This ant species has been observed to raid wasp nests, including the species Mischocyttarus mexicanus, and to forage on their brood. It is the most dominant arboreal ant in the pine forests of the coastal plains of northern Florida. Colonies of these ants inhabit a majority of pine trees in the area, living in chambers in the outer bark of living trees that have been abandoned by bark-mining caterpillars, usually of the family Cossidae. C. ashmeadi does little to no excavation of its own, relying solely on chambers bored out by other insects.
A wingless insect is an insect that does not have wings.
In the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus classified the arthropods, including insects, arachnids and crustaceans, among his class "Insecta". Insects with membranous wings, including bees, wasps and ants were brought together under the name Hymenoptera.
Polysphincta boops is a species belonging to the family Ichneumonidae subfamily Pimplinae.
Dasymutilla occidentalis, is a species of parasitoid wasp native to the eastern United States. It is commonly mistaken for a member of the true ant family, as the female is wingless. The species ranges from Connecticut to Missouri in the north and Florida to Texas in the south.
Priocnemis monachus is a large spider wasp from New Zealand where it is known as the "black hunting wasp". It is the largest pompilid in New Zealand.
Mutilla europaea, the large velvet ant, is a species of parasitoid wasps belonging to the family Mutillidae. It is a parasitoid on various species of bumble bees and is found in Europe, Asia and North Africa.
Exomalopsis is a genus of bees in the family Apidae. They occur in the Western Hemisphere, especially in the Neotropical and Nearctic regions.
Condylodon is a genus of ant with an uncertain placement in the family Formicidae. It contains the single species Condylodon audouini, first described from a single specimen by Lund (1831) in a paper on Brazilian ants.
The Myrmosidae are a small family of wasps very similar to the Mutillidae. As in mutillids, females are flightless, and are kleptoparasites in the nests of fossorial bees and wasps.
Euspinolia militaris is a species of wasp in the family Mutillidae. Though it is a wingless wasp, it has sometimes been referred to by the name panda ant.
Augochloropsis is a genus of brilliant metallic, often blue-green, sweat bees in the family Halictidae. There are at least 140 described species in Augochloropsis.
References
- ↑ Yanega, D. (1994) Arboreal, Ant-Mimicking Mutillid Wasps, Pappognatha; Parasites of Neotropical Euglossa (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae and Apidae). Biotropica 26: 465-468
- ↑ Diomedes Quintero A. and Roberto A. Cambra (2005) Pappognatha Mickel (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae: Sphaeropthalminae): New Species, Sex Associations, Hosts, and New Distribution Records. Journal of Hymenoptera Research 14:191–199
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