Austrian cuckoo wasp
| Austrian cuckoo wasp | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Austrian cuckoo wasp ( Vespula austriaca ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Vespula austriaca | ||||||||||||
| ( Panzer , 1799) |
The Austrian cuckoo wasp ( Vespula austriaca ) is a cuckoo wasp from the family of wasps (Vespidae). It lives as a social parasite of the red wasp ( Vespula rufa ).
features
The wasps reach a body length of 15 to 19 millimeters (females) or 13 to 16 millimeters (males) .. Their clypeus usually has a black spot, more rarely it is completely yellow or has three black spots. Unlike many other wasps, the species cannot be determined from the Clypeus to the species. The following characteristics can be used for a reliable differentiation: The tibia (splint) of the hind legs is double haired, it has short yellow and long black hairs, this long hairiness is absent in the other species of the genus. In addition, the female clypeus has two pointed teeth in front of the species, while the males have blunt teeth (but longer than the other species). Further differences concern the shape of the male's aedeagus and are only visible after dissection. By the North American sister species Vespula infernalis puncturing differs frons (forehead). This is significantly coarser and deeper, mostly somewhat grainy.
Of their host species Vespula rufa is Vespula austriaca easily distinguishable to the lack of red coloration of the first Hinterleibstergite.
Occurrence
The Austrian cuckoo wasp lives all over Europe, north to Scandinavia and Scotland (a single figure for the Faroe Islands ), south to the Mediterranean area, except for the south. To the east it also populates almost all of North Asia, east to Kamchatka, the Amur region and Japan. It occurs in Turkey (central and eastern Anatolia only), Pakistan, northern India and northern China. It is widespread in Europe, but mostly quite rare (only a find from Denmark from the 19th century), but still the most common species among the cuckoo wasps .
For a long time the species was also given from northern North America, where instead of Vespula rufa (which also occurs in North America) the American Vespula acadica is its host species. However, this information relates to Vespula infernalis
Like its host species, it colonizes various open habitats and rarely occurs in the vicinity of humans. It is rare in Central Europe and flies from late June to late August. Young animals of the new generation fly from mid-July.
Way of life
The Austrian cuckoo wasp is a social parasite of the red wasp. Their way of life has not been studied in detail. As with all cuckoo wasps, a female invades a developing colony of the red wasp, kills or displaces its queen and lets the workers raise their own offspring instead.
Taxonomy and systematics
The species was first described as Vespa austriaca in 1799 by the doctor and naturalist Georg Wolfgang Franz Panzer . The type locality is the area around Vienna (therefore presumably called austriaca after Austria ). Due to the socially parasitic way of life, Otto Schmiedeknecht established the genus Pseudovespa for them , which is no longer recognized today. By subsequent determination by William Harris Ashmead in 1902, it is the type species of the genus Vespula Thomson, 1869.
The populations in North America that were previously assigned to the species (host species there Vespula acadica ) were separated as a separate species by Lynn S. Kimsey and James M. Carpenter in 2012. To do this, they reinstated the old name Vespa infernalis (described in 1854 by Henri de Saussure ) , which was previously taken as a synonym .
swell
literature
- Rolf Witt: Wasps. Observe, determine. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89440-243-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Rolf Witt: Wasps. Observe, determine. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89440-243-1 .
- ^ A b Libor Dvořák & Stuart PM Roberts (2006): Key to the paper and social wasps of Central Europe (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 46: 221-244.
- ↑ Jérôme Carminati (2020): Identification des guêpes sociales (Vespa, Vespula, Dolichovespula; Vespidae: Vespinae) de France, femelles uniquement. Office pour les insectes et leur environnement de Franche-Comté. download
- ↑ James M. Carpenter, Jun-Ichi Kojima, Libor Dvořák, Adrien Perrard (2015): Taxonomic notes on Vespinae (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Entomologica Americana 121 (1-4): 35-37.
- ↑ Sjúrður Hammer & Jens-Kjeld Jensen (2019): The invasion of two species of social wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae) to the Faroe Islands. BioInvasions Records 8 (3): 558-567.
- ↑ Erol Yildirim (2012): The distribution and biogeography of Vespidae (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) in Turkey. Türkiye Entomoloji Dergisi 36 (1): 23-42.
- ^ A b James M. Carpenter & Jun-ichi Kojima (1997): Checklist of the species in the subfamily Vespinae (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Natural History Bulletin Ibaraki University 1: 51-92.
- ^ Af Palle Johnsen (1969): Gedehams Vespula austriaca, ny for Danmark. Flora and Fauna, Udgivet af Naturhistorisk Forening for Jylland 75 (2): 61-62.
- ↑ a b Lynn S. Kimsey, James M. Carpenter (2012): The Vespinae of North America (Vespidae, Hymenoptera). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 28: 37-65 doi: 10.3897 / JHR.28.3514
- ↑ Josef Gusenleitner (2008): Vespidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera) (Checklists of the Fauna of Austria, No. 3). - Biosystematics and Ecology 24: 31-40.
