''Reclinervellus nielseni'' is one of the spider-ectoparasitoids belonging to the ''Polysphincta'' genus-group (

Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is a large order (biology), order of insects, comprising the sawfly, sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are Par ...

Ichneumonidae The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family (biology), family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 2 ...

Pimplinae Pimplinae are a worldwide subfamily of the parasitic wasp family Ichneumonidae.Gavin Broad (1966Identification key to the subfamilies of Ichneumonidae/ref> Pimplinae are parasitoids of Endopterygota, often the pupae of Lepidoptera. Various spec ...

) and utilizes exclusively ''

Cyclosa ''Cyclosa'', also called trashline orbweavers, is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Anton Menge in 1866. Widely distributed worldwide, spiders of the genus ''Cyclosa'' build relatively small orb webs with a web decoration. The we ...

'' spiders (

Araneae Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species dive ...

Araneidae Orb-weaver spiders are members of the spider family Araneidae. They are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields, and forests. The English word "orb" can mean "circular", hence the English name ...

) as hosts. The species is distributed through

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

region (from Britain to Japan) but is rather sparse. Host spider species is different in accordance with the region, that is ''

Cyclosa conica ''Cyclosa conica'' is a small spider with no common name. It is an orb weaver, and it is easily recognized by the way it strings together the dead bodies of insects and other debris and hangs it near the center of its web. It hides on this strin ...

'' in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

whereas ''

Cyclosa argenteoalba ''Cyclosa argenteoalba'', in the trashline orbweavers genus, is a species of orb weaver in the spider family Araneidae. It is found in East Asia in the countries of China, Japan, and Korea. ''C. argenteoalba'' are diurnal, which means they are ...

'' in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Host manipulation

''Reclinervellus nielseni'' is known to manipulate web-building behavior of the host spider (''Cyclosa argenteoalba'') to modify an original fragile orb-web into a simple and durable web with conspicuous web decorations. The modified web is derived from a pre-programmed resting web constructed before spiders' molting, verified by the conformity of web shape and the presence of specific web decoration. The web decorations are thought to serve as a web-advertiser toward flying and potential web destroyers (birds and insects). Although the molting web structure usually only the two days the spider takes to molt, the larvae remain within their spider-cocoon for up to ten days before hatching.

References

Pimplinae Insects described in 1923 Mind-altering parasites {{Ichneumonidae-stub