Sphecidae

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Sphecidae
Ammophila sabulosa

Ammophila sabulosa

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Hymenoptera (Hymenoptera)
Subordination : Waist Wasps (Apocrita)
Superfamily : Apoidea
without rank: Digger wasps (Spheciformes)
Family : Sphecidae
Scientific name
Sphecidae
Latreille , 1802
Sphex argentatus prey on a grasshopper.
Digger wasp of the genus Ammophila closes its nest with a stone.

Sphecidae is a family of digger wasps (Spheciformes). It comprises 19 genera in three tribes. It is represented in Europe with 59 species in 12 genera. The group is summarized by some authors together with the family Ampulicidae at the level of subfamilies within a common family Sphecidae.

features

The medium-sized to large digger wasps have a very long and thin stalk limb ( petiolus ). The first abdominal segment ( propodeum ) is strongly developed and has a striped or roughly wrinkled surface. The rails ( tibia ) of the middle legs carry two spurs in most species. There is no pygidial field in either sex. The body of the animals usually has a black basic color, the base of the abdomen and the petiolus are red to reddish or yellow in color, the abdomen is shiny metallic in some species. In the tropics there are also green or blue iridescent colored species.

Occurrence and habitat

The Sphecidae are distributed worldwide. Most of the representatives of the Sceliphrini are widespread in America, the genera Chalybion and Sceliphron occur mainly in tropical Africa, but also in the Mediterranean region. The genera of the tribe Sphecini are distributed worldwide, the genera Sphex , Isodontia , Palmodes and Prionyx occur in the Palearctic and there mainly in the Mediterranean area. The Ammophilini tribe includes four genera, some of which are tropical, some of which are Mediterranean, as well as the genera Podalonia and sand wasps ( Ammophila ), which also occur in Central Europe .

Way of life

The Sphecidae are a group in which very different ways of life occur. There are species that live like parasitoids and track down their hosts such as crickets in their underground burrows. These escape to the surface, which means that the female wasp can attach their egg to them after only briefly stunning. After paralysis, the host animal returns to its den and is eventually eaten up by the wasp larva. However, there are also species, such as that of the genus Trigonopsis , which is widespread in the Neotropics , that show a primitive social behavior. Two to four females work together to build multi-cell, adjacent nests out of mud and help each other with this. The males also stay at the nest and defend it. Even enemies such as ants are repelled together. Apparently the next generation of wasps are also returning to their nests. In the species Sphex , Podalonia and Ammophila , the females dig their nests in the ground, which expand at the end of a passage. The larvae are supplied with anesthetized host animals.

In contrast to the usual practice of digger wasps, some species of the Podalonia genus only lay their nests after hunting host animals, as is otherwise known from the wasps (Pompilidae). Occasionally, several nests are cared for at the same time, as is the case with some species of the Ammophila genus, or several larvae are cared for in a nest within a large brood cell, as with some species of the Isodontia genus .

Food of larvae

The larvae of the Sphecidae are supplied with spiders, cockroaches, crickets and grasshoppers, praying mantises, butterfly caterpillars or anal caterpillars ; many species specialize in different groups or species of these animals.

Hunting behavior

Due to the very different prey animals, which are sometimes considerably larger in size than the female wasps, there are different hunting methods for the Sphecidae. Large prey, such as caterpillars or grasshoppers, are stung not just once but several times along their body to numb them. With large prey, one can also observe that the prey behind the head is squeezed and kneaded (malaxed) with the mandibles. It is not yet sufficiently clear whether this behavior contributes to the paralysis of the prey or whether it promotes the escape of body sap that the wasp ingests.

Large prey is usually transported forwards, more rarely also by flying. The victim usually points their back down and their head forward. In addition to the mandibles, caterpillars are also held by the first pair of legs on the first third of the body. The females of the genus Sphex usually transport locusts with their belly down by grabbing them by the antennae with their mandibles.

Specialized enemies

Little is known about specialized parasitoids on the Sphecidae. Flesh flies of the genus Metopia are common predators of Spheciden. The diptera larva deposited in the pit wasp nest eats the wasp egg and then its provisions. The imagines occasionally parasitoids, such as occur Fächerflügler Xenos sphecidarum on.

Systematics

All currently recognized recent subtaxa down to genus and European species are listed below:

supporting documents

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sphecidae. Fauna Europaea, accessed January 3, 2010 .
  2. ↑ Wojciech J. Pulawski: Family group names and classification , Version May 22, 2009, Online (PDF; 113 kB), last accessed January 3, 2010

literature

  • Manfred Blösch: The digger wasps in Germany: way of life, behavior, distribution . 1st edition. Goecke & Evers, 2000, ISBN 3-931374-26-2 .

Web links

Commons : Sphecidae  - collection of images, videos and audio files