''Ancistrocerus'' is a widely distributed genus of

potter wasp Potter wasps (or mason wasps), the Eumeninae, are a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan wasp group currently considered a subfamily of Vespidae, but sometimes recognized in the past as a separate family, Eumenidae. Mud dauber wasps, which al ...

s present in many

biogeographical region A biogeographic realm is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. A biogeograp ...

s of the world. They are nonpetiolate eumenine wasps with a transverse ridge at the bending summit of the first

metasoma The metasoma is the posterior part of the body, or tagma (biology), tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the mesosoma. In insects, it contains most of the digestive tract, respiratory sy ...

tergum A ''tergum'' (Latin for "the back"; : ''terga'', associated adjective tergal) is the dorsal ('upper') portion of an arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton wi ...

and with a low and opaque propodeal lamella completely fused to the submarginal carina. The name of this genus (meaning "hooked horn" for the back-curved last segments of the antennae characteristic of males of this genus and most other potter wasp genera) has been widely used as root in the construction of many other genus-level names for potter wasps with a nonpetiolated metasoma and normally bearing a transverse ridge on the first metasomal tergum, such as '' Ancistroceroides'', ''

Parancistrocerus ''Parancistrocerus'' is a rather large genus of potter wasps whose distribution spans the Nearctic, eastern Palearctic, Oriental and Neotropical regions. A pair of medial pits on the anterior face of the pronotum and the expansion of the tegula ...

'', '' Orancistrocerus'', '' Tachyancistrocerus, etc.

Species

The Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG) lists the following 211 recognized species in the genus: There are further species not listed above, including: * '' Ancistrocerus coreanus'' * '' Ancistrocerus densepilosellus'' * '' Ancistrocerus extremus'' * '' Ancistrocerus isla'' * '' Ancistrocerus leleji'' * '' Ancistrocerus tenebrosus''Gusenleitner, J. 2010: Bemerkenswertes über Faltenwespen X (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae, Masarinae) otable information on mason wasps and pollen wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae, Masarinae).''Linzer biologische Beiträge'', 42(2): 1347-1352. ION

References

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References

Potter wasps Hymenoptera genera Articles containing video clips Long stubs with short prose {{potter-wasp-stub