Wasps

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Wasps
Eurytoma amygdali on an almond

Eurytoma amygdali on an almond

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Hymenoptera (Hymenoptera)
Subordination : Waist Wasps (Apocrita)
Partial order : Legimmen (Terebrantia)
Superfamily : Wasps
Scientific name
Chalcidoidea
Latreille , 1817
Leucospis gigas has the wasp-typical black-yellow color.
The veining of the wings of the wasps is greatly reduced. Mv = marginal loader, Smv = submarginal loader, Pmv = post-marginal loader, Stv = stigma loader, St = stigma, U = uncus

The wood wasps (Chalcidoidea) form a superfamily of hymenoptera , which includes some of the smallest winged insects . They rarely grow larger than 5 millimeters. The wingless males of Dicopomorpha echmepterygis are only 0.11 to 0.24 millimeters long. Most of the species are parasitoids , around 80 species are plant pests .

The wasps comprise about 22,000 described species worldwide, of which at least 2000 species occur in Central Europe . The wasps are hardly noticed by humans because of their small size. They are often mistaken for small flies or other hymenoptera. The exact determination is difficult in the field. Therefore the number of still undiscovered species is considered to be particularly high, the total number of species within the superfamily is estimated at 400,000 to 500,000.

features

The German-language name Erzwespen comes from the metallic green, blue, bronze or purple color of most species. However, some species also show the wasp-typical black and yellow warning color or other colors.

The veining of the wings is greatly reduced compared to the other superfamilies of wasps. In the membranous forewings, they have no cells completely surrounded by veins. The wasps have only one vein each on the front edge of the two fore and hind wings. On the fore wing, this marginal vein branches into a post-marginal and a stigmal branch, a few species show no branching at all.

Only the Scelionidae and Platygastridae from the superfamily of the Platygastroidea (formerly counted among the wasp-like or Proctotrupoidea) have a similarly reduced wing veining. The ore wasps are easy to distinguish from these groups because they have an additional sclerite , the prepectus, between the base of the forewing and the pronotum , so that the forewing appears slightly separated from the lateral corner of the pronotum.

The wasps have long sensillae on their antennae , which can often be seen as parallel white lines along the antennae .

Way of life

The overwhelming majority of the wasp species feed parasitically in the larval stage . Eggs, larvae and pupae as well as the adult stages of the hosts can be attacked. Several species of the wasps are specialized in certain plants, while others are predatory larvae . Even if most of the species have a particular specialization, a large variety of diets and diets are used within the superfamily as a whole. The way of life is often very different between the species of a single genus.

Parasitoids

The parasitic wasps include both endoparasites, which feed as larvae within the host, and ectoparasites, which live on the host animals. There is Gregar parasitism , in which several parasites of the same species attack one host, but mainly solitary parasitism, in which only one larva feeds on a host. The infestation with ore wasp larvae usually ends with the death of the host animal, so the majority of the ore wasps are parasitoids. As with parasitic wasps or digger wasps , the females usually lay their eggs in or on the host animal. The hatching larvae of the wood wasps then feed on the animal until they pupate.

Plant pests

Phytophagous species exist in the families Eurytomidae (e.g. Eurytoma amygdala , whose larvae live in the fruits of the almond tree ), Eulophidae , Pteromalidae , Tanaostigmatidae and Torymidae . All species of the fig wasp family (Agaonidae) develop in figs . Plants from a total of 44 different plant families are attacked by wasps.

Predatory larvae

Some larvae from species of the Encyrtidae family are free-living and predatory feed on the eggs of various cup scale insects . Others, from the Eurytomidae family, prey on the larvae of gall wasps .

Families with variety of species

The wasps are currently divided into 19 families, the largest of which is the Eulophidae family with almost 4500 species. There are 90 subfamilies.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e E. E. Grissell & ME Schauff: A Handbook of the Families of Nearctic Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera). Entomological Society of Washington, Washington, DC, 1990 pp. 1–85 Online ( Memento of the original from August 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / peet.tamu.edu
  2. ↑ EL Mockford: A new species of Dicopomorpha (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) with diminutive, apterous males. Annales of the Entomological Society of America, 90, pp. 115-120, 1997
  3. ↑ a b c d e J. S. Noyes: Universal Chalcidoidea Database. About chalcoids . Revised June 2003 Online
  4. ↑ Stefan Schmidt, Olga Schmidt, Till Osten: ChalcIS-D: Information System Chalcidoidea Germany (Hymenoptera) English language poster (PDF; 236 kB) from ChalcIS-D: Chalcidoidea Informations-System für Deutschland
  5. ^ JS Noyes: Interactive Catalog of World Chalcidoidea, 2nd edition. Taxapad and the Natural History Museum, London 2002
  6. ↑ JS Noyes: Encyrtidae of Costa Rica (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea), 1. The subfamily Tetracneminae, parasitoids of mealybugs (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae). Memories of the American Entomological Institute, 62, 2000

Web links

Commons : Chalcidoid wasps  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files