Xiphydriidae Temporal range: | |
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Xiphydria type genus of the family Xiphydriidae | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Insecta |
Order: | Hymenoptera |
Superfamily: | Xiphydrioidea |
Family: | Xiphydriidae Leach, 1815 |
Xiphydriidae are a family of wood wasps that includes around 150 species. They are located all over the world including North and South America, Australia, Europe, and others. [1] Xiphydriidae larvae are wood borers in dead trees or branches of a range of trees. [2] They are characterized as having long and skinny necks with dome-shaped heads. [3] The oldest fossils of the group are from the mid Cretaceous. [4]
These 29 genera belong to the family Xiphydriidae: [5]
Most of the species of Xiphydriidae have antennae that are filiform. [3] The antennal segments vary in number ranging from 14 to 22. [3] The maxillary and labial palpi shape and length varies by species. They have an occipital carina which is a ridge in the back of the head. [3] The head is somewhat spherical and is shiny. [6]
The pronotum is medially constricted in Xiphydriidae. [6] The defined axillae completely separates the scutum laterally from the mesoscutellum. [7] Parts of the thorax for Xiphydriidae are generally smooth and shiny. [3]
The segment of the abdomen called the gaster can have an orange, red, or yellow coloring pattern. [7]
A study by David R. Smith broke the Xiphydriidae into different groups by their abdomen. The groups were as follows:
The Xiphydriidae larvae phytophagous, meaning bore into dead or weak trees and plants. [7] When they are buried in these trees, they rely on symbiotic fungi for food in the tunnels that they made. [1] The larva either do not have legs or they have vestigial legs. During the larval stage, the head of Xiphydriidae is as long as broad. [8] As a larva, the antenna contains either three or four segments. The first segment of the antenna does not have setae and is not enlarged. [8]
Adults are 6-21mm long. Adult Xiphydriidae are most commonly found in shadowy places and run on the surface of leaves. [9] The adults have heads that are spherical which are attached to long and skinny necks. [3]
Xiphydriidae bore and feed into dying or weakened trees so they do not have a negative effect to the environment. [10] They can be a secondary pest to humans because of the dead wood people may bring into their homes. [8] Xiphydriidae can be a host for parasitoid Aulacidae and they emerge from larvae that are fully grown. [11]
In Japan, female Xiphydriidae were dissected and fungal spores were found. [12] The spores were 5 to 30 micrometers in diameter and had a globular shape. Mucus was also in the glandular organs of some of the wood wasps. [12]
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism —that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature.
Sawflies are the insects of the suborder Symphyta within the order Hymenoptera, alongside ants, bees, and wasps. The common name comes from the saw-like appearance of the ovipositor, which the females use to cut into the plants where they lay their eggs. The name is associated especially with the Tenthredinoidea, by far the largest superfamily in the suborder, with about 7,000 known species; in the entire suborder, there are 8,000 described species in more than 800 genera. Symphyta is paraphyletic, consisting of several basal groups within the order Hymenoptera, each one rooted inside the previous group, ending with the Apocrita which are not sawflies.
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.
Horntail or wood wasp are any of the 150 non-social species of the hymenopteran family Siricidae, a type of wood-eating sawfly. The common name "horntail" derives from the stout, spine-like structure at the end of the adult's abdomen, which is used to pierce the host's bark to allow the eggs to be inserted into the wood. A typical adult horntail is brown, blue, or black with yellow or red parts, and may often reach up to 4 cm (1.6 in) long. The pigeon horntail can grow up to 5 cm (2.0 in) long, among the longest of all Hymenoptera.
The Orussidae or the parasitic wood wasps represent a small family of sawflies ("Symphyta"). Currently, about 93 extant and four fossil species are known. They take a key position in phylogenetic analyses of Hymenoptera, because they form the sister taxon of the megadiverse apocritan wasps, and the common ancestor of Orussidae + Apocrita evolved parasitism for the first time in course of the evolution of the Hymenoptera. They are also the only sawflies with carnivorous larvae.
The Xyelidae are a comparatively species-poor family of sawflies, comprising about 80 extant species in five genera worldwide, and is the only family in the superfamily Xyeloidea. The fossil record of the family is extensive, comprising more than 120 species and including the oldest fossil Hymenoptera species dating back to the Triassic, between 245 and 208 million years ago. Xyelidae are to be regarded as living fossils since they represent one of the oldest lineages of insects and include still extant forms.
Cephoidea is a small superfamily within the Symphyta, commonly referred to as stem sawflies, containing some 100 species in 10 genera in the living family, Cephidae, plus another 17 genera in the extinct family Sepulcidae. Most species occur in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Eurasia. The larvae are stem borers in various plants, especially grasses, but sometimes other herbaceous plants, shrubs, or trees. A few are pests of cereal grains. They are exceptionally slender for symphytans, often resembling other types of wasps, and they are the only Symphyta which lack cenchri. They are sometimes postulated to be the sister taxon to the Apocrita, though the Orussidae are more commonly considered such.
Pamphiliidae is a small wasp family within Symphyta, containing some 200 species from the temperate regions of North America and Eurasia. The larvae feed on plants, using silk to build webs or tents, or to roll leaves into tubes in which they feed, thus earning them the common names leaf-rolling sawflies or web-spinning sawflies. Some species are gregarious and the larvae live in large groups. Fossils of Pamphiliidae have been dated to the Jurassic period.
The Pergidae are a moderate-sized family of sawflies occurring in the Western Hemisphere and the Australasian Region. The Pergidae are, with almost 450 described species, the third-largest family of Symphyta after the Tenthredinidae and the Argidae. Morphologically, most pergids are typically sawfly-like, but the form of the antennae varies considerably in number of segments and from simple to serrate and pectinate or even bipectinate. Sexual dimorphism is common and reflected in differences in type of antennae, colour, and size. Included are some of the few known apterous sawflies, those of the genus Cladomacra occurring in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, and a species with brachypterous females, Clarissa tasbates, in Tasmania.
Tenthredinidae is the largest family of sawflies, with well over 7,500 species worldwide, divided into 430 genera. Larvae are herbivores and typically feed on the foliage of trees and shrubs, with occasional exceptions that are leaf miners, stem borers, or gall makers. The larvae of externally feeding species resemble small caterpillars. As with all hymenopterans, common sawflies undergo complete metamorphosis.
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.
Nematinae is a subfamily of sawflies belonging to the family Tenthredinidae. It contains over 1250 described species in ~40 genera. Members of this subfamily feed on a wide range of plants and employ a wide range of feeding habits, both internally and externally, on their host plants.
Allantinae is a subfamily of sawflies in the family Tenthredinidae, and the largest subfamily of that family, with about 110 genera. The subfamily is considered to consist of five to six tribes, and are medium to large sawflies.
The Ibaliidae are a small family of hymenopteran superfamily Cynipoidea. Ibaliidae differ from most of the cynipoids by the larvae being parasitoids on other wasp larvae in the group Siricidae. The Ibaliidae comprise three extant genera of fairly large wasps, with a total of 20 species, and is a sister group to the rest of the cynipoids except the small subfamily Austrocynipidae.
Tenthredo scrophulariae, the figwort sawfly, is a species of the family Tenthredinidae, subfamily Tenthredininae.
Cephidae is a family of stem sawflies in the order Hymenoptera. There are about 27 genera and more than 160 described species in Cephidae.
Pristaulacus is a cosmopolitan genus of aulacid wasps in the Hymenopteran family, Aulacidae. There are more than 190 described species in Pristaulacus. Most host records for Pristaulacus are wood-boring beetles.
Ibalia leucospoides, the knife-shaped ibalia, is a species of ibaliid wasp in the family Ibaliidae.
Urocerus japonicus, commonly known as the Japanese horntail, is a species of sawfly, native to southeastern Asia. Studies show that the dispersal distance of the female is higher than the male. The fungal species Amylostereum laevigatum had its first appearance in Japan via this sawfly.
Jouault, Corentin; Rosse-Guillevic, Simon. "A new genus of praeaulacid wasp from the mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber (Myanmar)". Annales de Paléontologie. 109 (1): 102599. doi:10.1016/j.annpal.2023.102599.