Astatinae are a cosmopolitan group of solitary

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. Th ...

s, peculiar for their males having very large

compound eye A compound eye is a visual organ found in arthropods such as insects and crustaceans. It may consist of thousands of ommatidia, which are tiny independent photoreception units that consist of a cornea, lens, and photoreceptor cells which dis ...

s that broadly meet at the top of the head. The largest genus in this subfamily is '' Astata'', with about half of more than 160 species in the subfamily. Phylogenomic analysis of Apoidea published in 2018 suggested that Astatinae, along with several other subfamilies and a subtribe, should be promoted to family rank: Ammoplanina (= Ammoplanidae), Astatinae (= Astatidae), Bembicinae (= Bembicidae), Mellininae (= Mellinidae), Pemphredoninae (= Pemphredonidae), Philanthinae (= Philanthidae), and Pseninae (= Psenidae). Astata male

References

Crabronidae Apocrita subfamilies Biological pest control wasps {{Apoidea-stub