Wild spider ant
| Wild spider ant | ||||||||||||
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Wild spider ant ( Ronisia barbara ), ♀ |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ronisia barbara | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The Wild Spider Ant ( Ronisia barbara ) is a Hymenoptera from the family of velvet ants (Mutillidae). The species is not endangered.
features
With a body length of 8 to 22 millimeters, the species becomes relatively large for European ant wasps. Like their size, the color is also very variable. The female has a red thorax , the head is usually just as red at the top, but can also be black and light gray to white hairy. The first two abdominal segments each have three white-gray hair patches arranged in transverse rows. Males have a black thorax and have either the same color on the abdomen as the females, or continuous cross bars. The animals can be confused with several species of their genus.
Occurrence
The wild spider ant is sometimes quite common in the Mediterranean area, to the north the distribution extends to Hungary . The species lives in open, sandy or stony habitats. You can find them in summer until about September.
Way of life
The animals are parasites in the nests of bees of the genera Megachile and Anthophora .
swell
literature
- Heiko Bellmann : bees, wasps, ants. Hymenoptera of Central Europe . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co KG, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-440-09690-4 .
