Signiphoridae (historically also known as Thysanidae) is a small family of

parasitic wasp Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps ( Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later cau ...

s in the superfamily

Chalcidoidea Chalcid wasps (, , for their metallic colour) are insects within the superfamily Chalcidoidea, part of the order Hymenoptera. The superfamily contains some 22,500 known species, and an estimated total diversity of more than 500,000 species, m ...

. The roughly 80 species are placed in four genera.

Diagnosis

The Signiphoridae range in size from . They are usually black, brown, or yellowish, occasionally with

salmon pink Salmon is a range of pinkish-orange to light pink colors, named after the color of salmon flesh. The first recorded use of ''salmon'' as a color name in English was in 1776.Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Pag ...

or white details, but never metallic. Cuticle sculpturing is very light when compared to families such as the

Eurytomidae The Eurytomidae are a family within the superfamily Chalcidoidea. Unlike most chalcidoids, the larvae of many are phytophagous (feeding in stems, seeds, or galls), while others are more typical parasitoids, though even then the hosts are usuall ...

Chalcididae The Chalcididae are a moderate-sized family within the Chalcidoidea, composed mostly of parasitoids and a few hyperparasitoids. The family is apparently polyphyletic, though the different subfamilies may each be monophyletic, and some may be el ...

. The main diagnostic characteristics are: * The

metasoma The metasoma is the posterior part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the mesosoma. In insects, it contains most of the digestive tract, respiratory system, and circula ...

is sessile (no "wasp waist"); 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, not subdivided, and bears a pair of spiracles. It is ...

has a medium triangular zone. * The antennal club is long, unsegmented, and preceded by one to four ring-like segments ("annelli"). * The wings have medium to long marginal setae, short postmarginal and stigmal veins, and no, one or two setae on the membrane.

Habitat

''Chartocerus'' and ''Thysanus'' have cosmopolitan distributions. The only formal record for ''Clytina'' is from Eastern Europe. ''Signiphora'', which represents more than half of the known species, is primarily

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bi ...

Biology

Most species have been reared in association with

scale insect Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than th ...

mealybug Mealybugs are insects in the family Pseudococcidae, unarmored scale insects found in moist, warm habitats. Many species are considered pests as they feed on plant juices of greenhouse plants, house plants and subtropical trees and also act as a ...

aphid Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A ...

psyllid Psyllidae, the jumping plant lice or psyllids, are a family of small plant-feeding insects that tend to be very host-specific, i.e. each plant-louse species only feeds on one plant species (monophagous) or feeds on a few closely related plants ( ...

s and flies ( chamaemyiids, gall-making chloropids, and

drosophilid The Drosophilidae are a diverse, cosmopolitan family of flies, which includes species called fruit flies, although they are more accurately referred to as vinegar or pomace flies. Another distantly related family of flies, Tephritidae, are true f ...

predators of scale insects. They can be either parasitoids or hyperparasitoids. While parasitoids contribute to control populations of other insects, hyperparasitoids can disrupt systems under biological control.

Systematics and classification

Woolley made several changes in the classification at genus and species level after a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analysis of the family. The available generic names in this group are ''Signiphora'' Ashmead, ''Thysanus'' Walker, ''Chartocerus'' Motschulsky, ''Clytina'' Erdös, ''Neosigniphora'' Rust, ''Kerrichiella'' Rozanov, ''Rozanoviella'' Subba Rao, ''Xana'' Kurdjumov, ''Matritia'' Mercet, ''Signiphorina'' Nikol'skaya and ''Neocales'' Risbec. The four last names are under synonymy or considered as subgenera in ''Chartocerus''. ''Rozanoviella'' and ''Kerrichiella'' are synonymized under ''Signiphora''. ''Neosigniphora'' is synonymized under ''Thysanus''. Hence, currently only four genera are valid. Subfamilies are not recognized. Signiphoridae are believed to be most closely related to azotine aphelinids.Woolley, J. B. (1988). Phylogeny and classification of the Signiphoridae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea). ''

Systematic Entomology ''Systematic Entomology'' is a scientific journal covering the field of systematic entomology, published by the Royal Entomological Society of London. Having begun in 1932 as '' Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London, Series B: ...

'' 13:465-501.

References

External links

Universal Chalcidoidea Database

{{Taxonbar, from=Q254158 Chalcidoidea Apocrita families