Aculeata is a

subclade In genetics, a subclade is a subgroup of a haplogroup. Naming convention Although human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) haplogroups and subclades are named in a similar manner, their names belong to completely separate s ...

of Hymenoptera containing ants,

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...

s, and stinging wasps. The name is a reference to the defining feature of the group, which is the modification of the

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 typica ...

into a

stinger A stinger (or sting) is a sharp organ found in various animals (typically insects and other arthropods) capable of injecting venom, usually by piercing the epidermis of another animal. An insect sting is complicated by its introduction of ve ...

. However, many members of the group cannot sting, either retaining the ovipositor, or having lost it altogether. A large part of the clade is

parasitic Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson ha ...

. This group includes all of the

eusocial Eusociality (from Greek εὖ ''eu'' "good" and social), the highest level of organization of sociality, is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping genera ...

Hymenopterans. It is theorized that the possession of a venomous sting was important in the repeated evolution of eusociality within Hymenoptera. The oldest aculeates are known from the Late Jurassic Karabastau Formation of Kazakhstan, represented by the family Bethylonymidae, which may be

para Para, or PARA, may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Paramount Global, traded as PARA on the Nasdaq stock exchange * Para Group, the former name of CT Corp * Para Rubber, now Skellerup, a New Zealand manufacturer * Para USA, formerly ...

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of conver ...

Classification

The use of the name Aculeata has a long history at the rank of

infraorder Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...

or division. The Aculeata are a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic ...

, or good natural group, containing all the descendants of a single common ancestor. The Aculeata are therefore maintained as a

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

, either at infraorder or division rank or as an unranked clade.

References

External links

Tree of Life Web Project
Aculeata

Bugguide.net: Aculeata
Johnson, B. et al. Phylogenomics resolves evolutionary relationships among ants, bees, and wasps. NCBI
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1251421 Apocrita Insect infraorders