''Sirex'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

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 in the family Siricidae, the horntails or wood wasps. They inject eggs with fungal

endosymbiont An ''endosymbiont'' or ''endobiont'' is any organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism most often, though not always, in a mutualistic relationship. (The term endosymbiosis is from the Greek: ἔνδον ''endon'' "within ...

s into wood. The fungus is contained in a mycangium which nourishes it with secretions, and in turn it digests wood for the wasp larva. The genus includes economically important pests; ''S. noctilio'', known simply as the 'Sirex woodwasp' is an

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species adv ...

, having spread widely across the world from its original range.Sirex Woodwasp – ''Sirex noctilio''.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 2011.Hurley, B. P., et al. (2007)
A comparison of control results for the alien invasive woodwasp, ''Sirex noctilio'', in the southern hemisphere.
''Agricultural and Forest Entomology'' 9(3), 159–71.

Species

* '' Sirex abietinus'' Goulet, 2012 * '' Sirex areolatus'' (Cresson, 1868) * '' Sirex behrensii'' (Cresson, 1880) * '' Sirex californicus'' (Ashmead, 1904) * '' Sirex carinthiacus'' Konow, 1892 * '' Sirex cyaneus'' Fabricius, 1781 * '' Sirex ermak'' (Semenov, 1921) * '' Sirex hispaniola'' Goulet, 2012 * '' Sirex juvencus'' (Linnaeus, 1758) * '' Sirex longicauda'' Middlekauff, 1948 * '' Sirex mexicanus'' Smith, 2012 * '' Sirex mongolorum'' (Semenov) * '' Sirex nigricornis'' Fabricius, 1781 * '' Sirex nitidus'' (Harris, 1841) * '' Sirex nitobei'' Matsumura * '' Sirex noctilio'' Fabricius, 1793 * '' Sirex obesus'' Bradley, 1913 * '' Sirex sinicus'' Maa * '' Sirex tianshanicus'' (Semenov) * '' Sirex torvus'' Harris, 1779 * '' Sirex varipes'' Walker, 1866 * '' Sirex vates'' Mocsáry * '' Sirex xerophilus'' Schiff, 2012

Species

References

Further reading