Euparagiinae
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Euparagiinae | ||||||||||||
| Ashmead , 1902 |
The Euparagiinae are a small subfamily of the wasps (Vespidae). They include a recent and two fossil genera. The recent (living) genus Euparagia lives in the arid southwest of North America (USA and Mexico).
features
Euparagiinae are small wasps with a body length of about 4 to 9 millimeters. Their body color is predominantly yellowish-straw-colored with black, brown and red drawing elements. The body is compact with a sessile, seated free abdomen ( metasoma ). The family can be identified mainly by the construction of the wings. The forewings are not folded lengthways at rest (in contrast to the "higher" wasps). The shape of a cell in the fore wing, the first subdiscal cell, is characteristic: this is elongated and pointed at the end (distal).
Way of life
All species of the genus Euparagia are solitary and do not form states . The females build earth nests. The adults are flower visitors and feed on pollen and nectar. Nest-building behavior was the only species investigated in more detail in Euparagia scutellaris . The females dig in hard, sandy loam, which they moisten with choked (regurgitated) water. The excavated material is baked into small pill-like packets. These are first deposited around the emerging entrance, so that a chimney-shaped, horizontally protruding tube is formed, which is angled at the end (similar to the genus Odynerus , see common chimney wasp ). The corridor, which is a few centimeters long, ends in one or more cells lying one behind the other, and brood chambers also branch off to the side (diameter 3 millimeters, length 7 millimeters). Each brood chamber is stocked up after a single egg has been laid. Euparagia scutellaris provided provisions between 10 and 16 living weevil larvae of the genus Smicronyx that were paralyzed by a poison sting , and in other studies also Ceutorrhynchus and Anthonomus . Five larval stages were observed which were passed through for five consecutive days. After a subsequent resting phase, the larva builds a self-spun cocoon in which it hibernates as a prepupa. Pupation then takes place in the following spring.
distribution
The Euparagia species live in dry, often desert-like habitats in the southwest of the USA (California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Utah), east with one species as far as Texas, and in the northwest of Mexico, on the Baja California , in Guerrero, Michoacan, Chihuahua, Sonora. A new species was recently discovered in sand dunes in California.
Fossil species
Fossil Euparagiinae have been described from Cretaceous sediments from Kazakhstan and Botswana, South Africa, so they were originally more common than they are today. The fossil species from Kazakhstan are placed in the genus Curiosivespa , the only find from Africa so far was described in the new genus Priorparagia . Both genera have original characteristics ( plesiomorphies ) compared to the living species , but can be assigned to the subfamily due to the characteristic wing veins . Together with another, morphologically even more original species from the same deposits in Kazakhstan ( Priorvespa directa ), these are the oldest known finds of folded wasps.
Taxonomy and systematics
The subfamily Euparagiinae includes a recent and two fossil genera. In the recent genus Euparagia ten species are known, which are classified into two species groups. It is considered to be the most original surviving subfamily of the Vespidae and a sister group of all other folded wasps combined.
In the original description, the subfamily was classified as a tribe of honey wasps (Masarinae). This grouping is probably based on plesiomorphic features and is no longer considered justified today. They were raised to the rank of subfamily by J.Bequaert in 1918.
supporting documents
Individual evidence
- ^ Henri Goulet & John T. Huber: Hymenoptera of the world, an identification guide to families. Center for Land and Biological Resources Research, Ottawa, Ontario; Research Branch Agriculture Canada Publication 1894 / E ISBN 0-660-14933-8
- ↑ a b c V. Mauss (2007): Evolution of different life forms within basal subgroups of the wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae). Denisia 20: 701-722.
- ^ A b c G. E. Trostle & PF Torchio (1986): Notes on the Nesting Biology and Immature Development of Euparagia scutellaris Cresson (Hymenoptera: Masaridae). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society Vol. 59, No. 4: 641-647.
- ↑ a b James M. Carpenter & Lynn S. Kimsey (2009): The Genus Euparagia Cresson (Hymenoptera: Vespidae; Euparagiinae). American Museum Novitates Number 3643: 1-11. download
- ↑ Lynn S. Kimsey (2007): Report on Selected Algodones Dunes Insects. Bureau of Land Management; Survey of the endemic insect species of the Algodones Dunes, Imperial Co., CA
- ↑ James M. Carpenter & Alexander P. Rasnitsyn (1990): Mesozoic Vespidae. Psyche 97: 1-20. download
- ↑ Denis J. Brothers & Alexander P. Rasnitsyn (2008): A new genus and species of Euparagiinae from the Late Cretaceous of southern Africa (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Alavesia 2: 73-76.
- ↑ Kurt M. Pickett & James M. Carpenter (2010): Simultaneous Analysis and the Origin of Eusociality in the Vespidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera). Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny 68 (1): 3-33.