''Venturia'' is a genus of parasitoid
wasps
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. T ...
belonging to the family
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 ...
.
The genus has
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 ...
.
Among the species in the genus are:
* ''
Venturia ahlensis''
Maheshwary, 1977
* ''
Venturia altia''
(Morley, 1913)
* ''
Venturia canescens''
(Gravenhorst, 1829)
Parthenogenetic reproduction
''Venturia canescens'' can produce
haploid
Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...
males from unfertilized eggs (
arrhenotoky
Arrhenotoky (from Greek -τόκος ''-tókos'' "birth of -" + ἄρρην ''árrhēn'' "male person"), also known as arrhenotokous parthenogenesis, is a form of parthenogenesis in which unfertilized eggs develop into males. In most cases, parthen ...
), a form of
parthenogenesis
Parthenogenesis (; from the Greek grc, παρθένος, translit=parthénos, lit=virgin, label=none + grc, γένεσις, translit=génesis, lit=creation, label=none) is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which growth and development ...
.
[Beukeboom LW, Pijnacker LP. Automictic parthenogenesis in the parasitoid Venturia canescens (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) revisited. Genome. 2000 Dec;43(6):939-44. doi: 10.1139/g00-061. PMID: 11195346] Females may also produce diploid female offspring by
thelytoky
Thelytoky (from the Greek ''thēlys'' "female" and ''tokos'' "birth") is a type of parthenogenesis in which females are produced from unfertilized eggs, as for example in aphids. Thelytokous parthenogenesis is rare among animals and reported in a ...
, a type of parthenogenesis that involves the production of female progeny in the absence of mating.
[
]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q20974264
Ichneumonidae
Ichneumonidae genera