The Gasteruptiidae are one of the more distinctive families among the

apocrita Apocrita is a suborder of insects in the order Hymenoptera. It includes wasps, bees, and ants, and consists of many families. It contains the most advanced hymenopterans and is distinguished from Symphyta by the narrow "waist" ( petiole) formed ...

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, with surprisingly little variation in appearance for a group that contains around 500 species in two subfamilies ( Gasteruptiinae and Hyptiogastrinae) and with 6 genera worldwide. They are members of Evanioidea.

Genera

This family includes the following genera in two subfamilies: * Gasteruptiinae Ashmead, 1900 ** '' Gasteruption'' Latreille, 1777 ** '' Plutofoenus'' Kieffer, 1911 ** '' Spinolafoenus'' Macedo, 2009 ** '' Trilobitofoenus'' Macedo, 2009 * Hyptiogastrinae ** '' Hyptiogaster'' Kieffer, 1903 ** '' Pseudofoenus'' Kieffer, 1902 Several fossil species are also known: *Hypselogastriinae **'' Hypselogastrion'' Engel & Wang, 2016

Burmese amber Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The ...

, Myanmar, mid Cretaceous (latest

Albian The Albian is both an age of the geologic timescale and a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early/Lower Cretaceous Epoch/Series. Its approximate time range is 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma to 100.5 ± 0.9 M ...

- earliest

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

) *Kotujellitinae **†'' Kotujellites'' Rasnitsyn 1990

Taimyr amber Taymyr or Taimyr may refer to: Places *Taymyr Peninsula, a peninsula in Siberia *Taymyr Gulf *Taymyra, a river in the Taymyr Peninsula *Lake Taymyr *Taymyr Island, an island in the Kara Sea *Taymyr Autonomous Okrug, a former federal subject of Rus ...

, Russia Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) **†'' Kotujisca'' Rasnitsyn 1991 Andaikhudag Formation, Mongolia, Early Cretaceous (

Hauterivian The Hauterivian is, in the geologic timescale, an age in the Early Cretaceous Epoch or a stage in the Lower Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 132.9 ± 2 Ma and 129.4 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Hauterivian is preceded by the ...

Barremian The Barremian is an age in the geologic timescale (or a chronostratigraphic stage) between 129.4 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago) and 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma). It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous Epoch (or Lower Cretaceous Series). It is precede ...

)

Description

The propleura form an elongated "neck", the petiole is attached very high on the

propodeum The propodeum or propodium is the first abdominal segment in Apocrita Hymenoptera (wasps, bees and ants). It is fused with the thorax to form the mesosoma. It is a single large sclerite A sclerite (Greek , ', meaning " hard") is a hardened bod ...

, and the hind

tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...

e are swollen and club-like. The females commonly have a long

ovipositor The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typical ...

(except in the genus ''Pseudofoenus''), and lay eggs in the nests of solitary bees and

s, where their larvae prey upon the host eggs, larvae and provisions. Jennings, J.T. & Austin, A.D., 2004. Biology and host relationships of aulacid and gasteruptiid wasps (Hymenoptera: Evanioidea): a review. pp. 187-215. ''In'' Rajmohana, K., Sudheer, K., Girish Kumar, P., & Santhosh, S. (Eds.) Perspectives on Biosystematics and Biodiversity. University of Calicut, Kerala, India. The absence of "teeth" on the crown of the head and the somewhat thickened antennae readily separate these wasps from those in the unrelated family Stephanidae, which also contains very slender wasps with long necks.

Distribution

The smaller of the two gasteruptiid subfamilies, Hyptiogastrinae, has a restricted

Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...

n distribution. ''Hyptiogaster'' with 10 species is endemic to Australia, whereas of the 80 species of ''Pseudofoenus'', most are found in Australia, with 2 species in New Zealand, 2 species in South America, 5 species in New Guinea and New Britain, and 3 species in the south-west Pacific (New Caledonia, New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu). ''Gasteruption'' is worldwide in its distribution, whereas ''Plutofoenus'', ''Spinolafoenus'' and ''Trilobitofoenus'' are found in South America.

Genera

Description

Distribution

References

External links