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Apocrita
Apocrita is a suborder of insects in the order Hymenoptera. It includes wasps, bees, and ants, and consists of many families. It contains the most advanced hymenopterans and is distinguished from Symphyta by the narrow "waist" ( petiole) formed between the first two segments of the actual abdomen; the first abdominal segment is fused to the thorax, and is called the propodeum. Therefore, it is general practice, when discussing the body of an apocritan in a technical sense, to refer to the mesosoma and metasoma (or gaster) rather than the "thorax" and "abdomen", respectively. The evolution of a constricted waist was an important adaption for the parasitoid lifestyle of the ancestral apocritan, allowing more maneuverability of the female's ovipositor. The ovipositor either extends freely or is retracted, and may be developed into a stinger for both defense and paralyzing prey. Larvae are legless and blind, and either feed inside a host (plant or animal) or in a nest cell provisio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the 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 parasitic. Females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or places that are otherwise inaccessible. This ovipositor is often modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism (complete metamorphosis)—that is, they have a wormlike larval stage and an inactive pupal stage before they mature. Etymology The name Hymenoptera refers to the wings of the insects, but the original derivation is ambiguous. All references agree that the derivation involves the Ancient Greek πτερόν (''pteron'') for wing. The Ancient Greek ὑμήν (''hymen'') for membrane provides a plausible etymology for the term because species in this order have membranous wings. However, a key characteristic of this order is that the hindwings are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sawfly
Sawflies are the insects of the suborder Symphyta within the order Hymenoptera, alongside ants, bees, and wasps. The common name comes from the saw-like appearance of the ovipositor, which the females use to cut into the plants where they lay their eggs. The name is associated especially with the Tenthredinoidea, by far the largest superfamily in the suborder, with about 7,000 known species; in the entire suborder, there are 8,000 described species in more than 800 genera. Symphyta is paraphyletic, consisting of several basal groups within the order Hymenoptera, each one rooted inside the previous group, ending with the Apocrita which are not sawflies. The primary distinction between sawflies and the Apocrita – the ants, bees, and wasps – is that the adults lack a "wasp waist", and instead have a broad connection between the abdomen and the thorax. Some sawflies are Batesian mimics of wasps and bees, and the ovipositor can be mistaken for a stinger. Sawflies vary in leng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paraphyletic
In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In contrast, a monophyletic group (a clade) includes a common ancestor and ''all'' of its descendants. The terms are commonly used in phylogenetics (a subfield of biology) and in the tree model of historical linguistics. Paraphyletic groups are identified by a combination of synapomorphies and symplesiomorphies. If many subgroups are missing from the named group, it is said to be polyparaphyletic. The term was coined by Willi Hennig to apply to well-known taxa like Reptilia ( reptiles) which, as commonly named and traditionally defined, is paraphyletic with respect to mammals and birds. Reptilia contains the last common ancestor of reptiles and all descendants of that ancestor, including all extant reptiles as well as the extinct synaps ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 causing the death of these hosts. Different species specialise in hosts from different insect orders, most often Lepidoptera, though some select beetles, flies, or bugs; the spider wasps ( Pompilidae) exclusively attack spiders. Parasitoid wasp species differ in which host life-stage they attack: eggs, larvae, pupae, or adults. They mainly follow one of two major strategies within parasitism: either they are endoparasitic, developing inside the host, and koinobiont, allowing the host to continue to feed, develop, and moult; or they are ectoparasitic, developing outside the host, and idiobiont, paralysing the host immediately. Some endoparasitic wasps of the superfamily Ichneumonoidea have a mutualistic relationship with polydnaviruses, the v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors. Wasps that are members of the clade Aculeata can sting their prey. The most commonly known wasps, such as yellowjackets and hornets, are in the family Vespidae and are eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen and non-reproducing workers. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual haplodiploid system of sex determination in Hymenoptera, as it makes sisters exceptionally closely related to each other. However, the majority of wasp species are solitary, with each adult female living and breeding independently. Females typically have an ovipositor f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasitica
Parasitica (the parasitican wasps) is an obsolete, paraphyletic infraorder of Apocrita containing the parasitoid wasps. It includes all Apocrita except for the Aculeata. Parasitica has more members as a group than both the Symphyta and the Aculeata combined. Parasitica also contains groups of phytophagous hymenopterans such as the Cynipoidea The Cynipoidea are a moderate-sized hymenopteran superfamily that presently includes five modern families and three extinct families, though others have been recognized in the past. The most familiar members of the group are phytophagous, especia ... (gall wasps). References External links Parasiticaat bugguide Insect infraorders Paraphyletic groups {{Apocrita-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aculeata
Aculeata is a subclade of Hymenoptera containing ants, bees, and stinging wasps. The name is a reference to the defining feature of the group, which is the modification of the ovipositor into a stinger. 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. This group includes all of the eusocial 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 or polyphyletic. Classification The use of the name Aculeata has a long history at the rank of infraorder or division. The Aculeata are a monophyletic, or good natural group, containing all the descendants of a single common ancestor. The Aculeata are therefore maintained as a taxon In bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ichneumonidae
The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 25,000 species currently described. However, this likely represents less than a quarter of their true richness as reliable estimates are lacking, along with much of the most basic knowledge about their ecology, distribution, and evolution.Quicke, D. L. J. (2015). The braconid and ichneumonid parasitoid wasps: biology, systematics, evolution and ecology. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Ichneumonid wasps, with very few exceptions, attack the immature stages of holometabolous insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts. They thus fulfill an important role as regulators of insect populations, both in natural and semi-natural systems, making them promising agents for biological control. The distribution of the ichneumonids was traditionally consid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petiole (insect)
In entomology, petiole is the technical term for the narrow waist of some hymenopteran insects, especially ants, bees, and wasps in the suborder Apocrita. The petiole can consist of either one or two segments, a characteristic that separates major subfamilies of ants. Structure The term 'petiole' is most commonly used to refer to the constricted first (and sometimes second) metasomal (posterior) segment of members of the hymenopteran suborder Apocrita ( ants, bees, and wasps). It is sometimes also used to refer to other insects with similar body shapes, where the metasomal base is constricted. The petiole is occasionally called a pedicel, but in entomology, that term is more correctly reserved for the second segment of the antenna; while in arachnology, ' pedicel' is the accepted term to define the constriction between the cephalothorax and abdomen of spiders. The plump portion of the abdomen posterior to the petiole (and postpetiole in the Myrmicinae) is called the gast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesosoma
The mesosoma is the middle part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the metasoma. It bears the legs, and, in the case of winged insects, the wings. In hymenopterans of the suborder Apocrita (wasps, bees and ants), it consists of the three thoracic segments and the first abdominal segment (the propodeum). For historical reasons, in ants it is commonly referred to by the alternative name alitrunk. In scorpions, it is composed of six segments and forms the first part of the abdomen, containing all of the major organs. The first segment contains the sexual organs as well as a pair of vestigial and modified appendages forming a structure called the genital operculum. The second segment bears a pair of featherlike sensory organs known as the pectines; the final four segments each contain a pair of book lungs. The mesosoma is armoured with chitinous plates, on the upper surface by the tergites and on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyperparasite
A hyperparasite, also known as a metaparasite, is a parasite whose host, often an insect, is also a parasite, often specifically a parasitoid. Hyperparasites are found mainly among the wasp-waisted Apocrita within the Hymenoptera, and in two other insect orders, the Diptera (true flies) and Coleoptera (beetles). Seventeen families in Hymenoptera and a few species of Diptera and Coleoptera are hyperparasitic. Hyperparasitism developed from primary parasitism, which evolved in the Jurassic period in the Hymenoptera. Hyperparasitism intrigues entomologists because of its multidisciplinary relationship to evolution, ecology, behavior, biological control, taxonomy, and mathematical models. Examples The most common examples are insects that lay their eggs inside or near parasitoid larvae, which are themselves parasitizing the tissues of a host, again usually an insect larva. A well-studied case is that of the small white butterfly (''Pieris rapae''), a serious horticultural pest of ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaster (insect Anatomy)
The gaster is the bulbous posterior portion of the metasoma found in hymenopterans of the suborder Apocrita (bees, wasps and ants). This begins with abdominal segment III on most ants, but some make a constricted postpetiole out of segment III, in which case the gaster begins with abdominal segment IV. Certain ants in the genus ''Cataglyphis'', specifically '' Cataglyphis bicolor'' and ''Cataglyphis fortis ''Cataglyphis fortis'' is a species of ant in the subfamily Formicinae. Found in Tunisia, the ants inhabit salt pans where they forage dead arthropods. Navigation skills and internal pedometer Measuring the sun's angle This ant ventures far f ...'', have a cubiform petiole that allows them to decrease their inertia (and therefore increase their speed) by raising their gaster into an upright position. References Insect anatomy {{insect-anatomy-stub de:Gaster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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