wasp
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...
s in the family Crabronidae. It is the largest genus in the family, with over 1030 described species and subspecies. Cerceris Catalog The genus has a
cosmopolitan distribution
In biogeography, cosmopolitan distribution is the term for the range of a taxon that extends across all or most of the world in appropriate habitats. Such a taxon, usually a species, is said to exhibit cosmopolitanism or cosmopolitism. The ext ...
beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
s, and sometimes
bee
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...
s. Many ''Cerceris'' are solitary, but some species share nesting sites or nest communally.
The faces of the females are frequently modified with unusual projections on the clypeus and the clypeal margin which can take the shape of conical bulges to elongated curving "horns". Paralyzed prey are carried in the females'
mandible
In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower tooth, teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movabl ...
s, which are somewhat elongated and tend to have prominent teeth, often with species-specific shapes. The abdominal segments are also constricted very strongly at the junctures, giving the abdomen a somewhat corrugated,
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
-like appearance.
Gallery
File:Cerceris triangulata, male BIML USGS.jpg, ''
Cerceris triangulata
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''Cerceris'' is a genus of wasps in the family Crabronidae. It is the largest genus in the family, with over 1030 described species and subspecies.Cerceris fumipennis''
File:Cerceris concinna.jpg, ''
Cerceris concinna
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''Cerceris'' is a genus of wasps in the family Crabronidae. It is the largest genus in the family, with over 1030 described species and subspecies.List of Cerceris species
This is a list of 880 species in ''Cerceris'', a genus of hymenopterans in the family Crabronidae.
''Cerceris'' species
* ''Cerceris abac'' Fritz and Mariluis, 1976
* ''Cerceris abacta'' Shestakov, 1915
* ''Cerceris abatanensis'' Reyes, 1986
* ' ...
