Bee ants
| Bee ants | ||||||||||||
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Female of Mutilla marginata |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Mutilla | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
Bee ants or bee wasps belong to the insect order of the hymenoptera (Hymenoptera). Within this they are as genus Mutilla in the family ant wasps ( Mutillidae) of the subordination of the waist wasps (Apocrita). Sometimes the term bee ants or bee wasps is also used to refer to the entire ant family.
The species M. europaea , M. mikado and M. saltensis were often only viewed as subspecies in the past . M. marginata was often referred to as M. differens or confused with M. europaea . Since it is not always clear to which of the species sources refer to the way of life of animals, all four species are considered here together.
The bee ants are the only representatives of the ant wasps for which bumblebees ( bombus ) are known as hosts. There is evidence of the parasitization of over 20 different species of bumblebee from Europe, the Caucasus and Japan . The first extremely precise investigations into the behavior of bee ants in bumblebee nests come from Johann Ludwig Christ and were published as early as 1791. The Austrian entomologist E. Hoffer published the most prestigious scientific work to date towards the end of the 19th century. Up to the first third of the 20th century there were also reliable reports about the occurrence of bee ants in honey bees with sometimes considerable damage in beekeeping (see ant wasps ).
Types (selection)
- Mutilla europaea
- Mutilla laevigata
- Mutilla marginata
- Mutilla mikado
- Mutilla quinquemaculata
- Mutilla saltensis
literature
- D. Brothers et al .: Associations of mutillid wasps (Hymenoptera, Mutillidae) with eusocial insects. In: Insectes Sociaux. 47, 2000, pp. 201-211. ISSN 0020-1812 ( PDF; 0.1 MB )
- E. Hoffer: On the biology of the Mutilla europaea L. In: Zoological year books. 1, 1886, pp. 677-686.