The Aulacidae are a small, cosmopolitan family of
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 ...
s, with two extant genera containing some 200 known species. They are primarily
endoparasitoids of wood wasps (
Xiphydriidae) and
xylophagous beetle
Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...
s (
Cerambycidae
The longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae), also known as long-horned or longicorns (whose larvae are often referred to as roundheaded borers), are a large family of beetles, with over 35,000 species described.
Most species are characterized by anten ...
and
Buprestidae). They are closely related to the family
Gasteruptiidae, sharing the feature of having the first and second
metasomal
tergites fused, and having the head on a long
pronotal "neck", though they are not nearly as slender and elongate as gasteruptiids, nor are their hind legs club-like, and they have more sculptured
thoraces. They share the evanioid trait of having the metasoma attached very high above the hind
coxae on the
propodeum.
While generally rarely collected, they can be locally abundant in areas undergoing logging or forest fires. The rich fossil record of Aulacidae indicates they were quite abundant in the
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...
.
Genera
Aulacidae consists of 5 genera, 3 extant and 2 extinct. They are:
* ''
Aulacus''
* †''
Hyptiogastrites''
* ''
Panaulix''
* ''
Pristaulacus''
* †''
Vectevania''
References
Tree of Life AulacidaeCatalogus Evaniidorum
Further reading
*Jennings, J.T. & Austin, A.D. 2004, Biology and host relationships of aulacid and gasteruptiid wasps (Hymenoptera: Evanioidea): a review. In: Rajmohana, K., Sudheer, K., Girish Kumar, P., & Santhosh, S. (Eds) Perspectives on Biosystematics and Biodiversity. (University of Calicut, Kerala, India), pp. 187–215.
*Turrisi, G.F., Jennings, J.T. & Vilhelmsen, L. 2009, Phylogeny and generic concepts in the parasitoid wasp family Aulacidae (Hymenoptera: Evanioidea). Invertebrate Systematics 23, 27–59. url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230725674_Phylogeny_and_generic_concepts_of_the_parasitoid_wasp_family_Aulacidae_Hymenoptera_Evanioidea
Evanioidea
Apocrita families
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