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 resemblance to an ant, and 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,, and has resulted in the common name "cow killer" or "cow ant" being applied to the species Dasymutilla occidentalis. 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.
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 Tiphiidae are a family of large, solitary wasps whose larvae are parasitoids of various beetle larvae, especially those in the superfamily Scarabaeoidea. Until recently, this family contained several additional subfamilies, but multiple studies have independently confirmed that these comprise a separate lineage, and are now classified in the family Thynnidae.
Rhopalosomatidae is a family of Hymenoptera containing about 68 extant species in four genera that are found worldwide. Three fossil genera are known.
Potter wasps, the Eumeninae, are a cosmopolitan wasp group presently treated as a subfamily of Vespidae, but sometimes recognized in the past as a separate family, Eumenidae.
Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causing the death of these hosts. Different species specialise in hosts from different insect orders, most often Lepidoptera, though some select beetles, flies, or bugs; the spider wasps (Pompilidae) exclusively attack spiders.
Sphecomyrma is an extinct genus of ants which existed in the Cretaceous approximately 79 to 92 million years ago. The first specimens were collected in 1966, found embedded in amber which had been exposed in the cliffs of Cliffwood, New Jersey, by Edmund Frey and his wife. In 1967, zoologists E. O. Wilson, Frank Carpenter and William L. Brown, Jr. published a paper describing and naming Sphecomyrma freyi. They described an ant with a mosaic of features—a mix of characteristics from modern ants and aculeate wasps. It possessed a metapleural gland, a feature unique to ants. Furthermore, it was wingless and had a petiole which was ant-like in form. The mandibles were short and wasp-like with only two teeth, the gaster was constricted, and the middle and hind legs had double tibial spurs. The antennae were, in form, midway between the wasps and ants, having a short first segment but a long flexible funiculus. Three additional species, S. canadensis, S. mesaki and S. nexa, were described in 1985, 2005, and 2024, respectively.
The Bradynobaenidae are a family of wasps similar to the Mutillidae, differing most visibly in the presence, in females, of a suture separating the pronotum from the mesonotum. These species are often found in arid regions.
Sphecomyrminae is an extinct subfamily of ants in family Formicidae known from a series of Cretaceous fossils found in North America, Europe, and Asia. Sphecomyrminae contains eight genera, divided into two tribes Sphecomyrmini and Zigrasimeciini. The tribe Sphecomyrmini contains the six genera Armania, Cretomyrma, Gerontoformica, Orapia, Pseudarmania and Sphecomyrma; while Zigrasimeciini contains Boltonimecia and Zigrasimecia. A number of taxa have been removed from the subfamily and placed either in other subfamilies or are now treated as incertae sedis in Formicidae.
Brownimecia is an extinct genus of ants, the only genus in the tribe Brownimeciini and subfamily Brownimeciinae of the Formicidae. Fossils of the identified species, Brownimecia clavata and Brownimecia inconspicua, are known from the Middle Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous of North America. The genus is one of several ants described from Middle Cretaceous ambers of New Jersey. Brownimecia was initially placed in the subfamily Ponerinae, until it was transferred to its own subfamily in 2003; it can be distinguished from other ants due to its unusual sickle-like mandibles and other morphological features that makes this ant unique among the Formicidae. B. clavata is also small, measuring 3.43 millimetres (0.135 in), and a stinger is present in almost all of the specimens collected. The morphology of the mandibles suggest a high level of feeding specialization.
Armaniinae is subfamily of extinct ant-like hymenopterans known from a series of Cretaceous fossils found in Asia and Africa. It is usually treated as one of the stem-group subfamilies in family Formicidae, although some myrmecologists treat it as a distinct family. A 2007 study analysing petiole and antenna morphology led to the proposal that at least some of the armaniid genera be placed in Sphecomyrminae, although others are unconvinced by the arguments and retain Armaniinae. The subfamily contains seven genera with fourteen described species.
The Thynnidae are a family of large, solitary wasps whose larvae are almost universally parasitoids of various beetle larvae, especially those in the superfamily Scarabaeoidea. Until recently, the constituents of this family were classified in the family Tiphiidae, but multiple studies have independently confirmed that thynnids are a separate lineage.
The Chyphotidae are a family of wasps with wingless females similar to the Mutillidae, differing most visibly in the presence, in females, of a suture separating the pronotum from the mesonotum. These species are found primarily in arid regions in the southwestern United States and adjacent regions in Mexico.
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.
Boltonimecia is an extinct genus of ant in the formicid subfamily Zigrasimeciinae. The genus contains a single described species, Boltonimecia canadensis, and is known from a single Late Cretaceous fossil which was found in Canada. The type species was originally described as a species of the extinct genus Sphecomyrma under the combination Sphecomyrma canadensis.
Pompiloidea is a superfamily that includes spider wasps and velvet ants, among others, in the order Hymenoptera. There are 4 families in Pompiloidea.
Tiphioidea is a suggested superfamily of stinging wasps in the order Hymenoptera. There are three families in Tiphioidea, Bradynobaenidae, Tiphiidae, and Sierolomorphidae.
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.
Zigrasimeciinae is a subfamily of ants, known from the Cretaceous period, originally named as the tribe Zigrasimeciini within the subfamily Sphecomyrminae by Borysenko, 2017, it was elevated to full subfamily in 2020. It contains three described genera. They are sometimes known as iron-maiden ants in reference to their densely spiked mouthparts, reminiscent of an iron maiden torture device, that were likely used to trap prey. Boltonimecia canadensis was described from Campanian Canadian amber out of Alberta, Canada, while the species of Protozigrasimecia and Zigrasimecia are both exclusively known from Cenomanian Burmese amber found in Myanmar.
