Chrysolampidae is a small
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
of
parasitoid
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...
s within the
Chalcidoidea
Chalcid wasps (, , for their metallic colour) are insects within the superfamily Chalcidoidea, part of the order Hymenoptera. The superfamily contains some 22,500 known species, and an estimated total diversity of more than 500,000 species, me ...
. The family is related to a clade that includes the
Eucharitidae,
Perilampidae and
Eutrichosomatidae. This group of wasp families have first-instar larvae that are called "
planidia
A planidium is a specialized form of insect larva seen in the first-instar of a few families of insects that have parasitoidal ways of life. They are usually flattened, highly Sclerotization, sclerotized (hardened), and quite mobile. The functi ...
". Adult females lay eggs on vegetation (often flowers) frequented by their host insects; after hatching, the planidia attach themselves to adults of the host, which then carries some of them to nests of the host. Here they parasitize the host larvae or pupae, before developing into winged adults.
[Heraty, J., Derafshan, H., & Moghaddam, M. (2019). Review of the Philomidinae Ruschka (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Perilampidae), with description of three new species. Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, 77, 39-56]
DOIPDF
/ref>[Noyes, J.S. and Pitkin, B.R. (2003). Universal Chalcidoidea Database: Notes on families]
/ref>
Subfamiles and genera
Chrysolampinae
* '' Austrotoxeuma'' (Australia and New Zealand)
* '' Brachyelatus'' (Australia)
* '' Chrysolampus'' (North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia)
* '' Chrysomalla'' (Asia, Europe, North Africa, Western USA, and Australia)
* '' Elatomorpha'' (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Morocco)
* '' Parelatus'' (Australia)
Philomidinae
* '' Aperilampus'' (Afrotropics)
* '' Philomides'' (Afrotropics, southern Palearctic and Indomalaya)
* '' Vidlinus'' (Afrotropics)
Distribution
The distribution of the Chrysolampinae includes steppe and Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
regions in western North America, Europe, North Africa and Central Asia, mesic forests in Europe and Asia, and tropical forests in Australia and the Philippines.[Darling, D.C. (1986). Revision of the new world Chrysolampinae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea). The Canadian Entomologist, 118(9), 913-940]
DOIPDF
/ref> Philomidinae are found in a range of vegetation types in the Afrotropics
The Afrotropical realm is one of Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Africa south of the Sahara Desert, the majority of the Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, southern Iran and extreme southwestern Pakistan, and the island ...
, southern Palearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...
and Indomalaya.[
]
Biology
Knowledge of the biology of the Chrysolampidae is limited: A few species of the Chrysolampinae are known to be parasitoids of beetles, including weevils of the genus '' Tychius'' and a pollen beetle ''Meligethes pedicularius
''Meligethes'' is a genus of pollen beetles in the family Nitidulidae
The sap beetles, also known as Nitidulidae, are a family (biology), family of beetles.
They are small (2–6 mm) ovoid, usually dull-coloured beetles, with knobbed ant ...
''.[ '' Aperilampus varians'' is a parasitoid of the pupa of '' Halictus africanus''; other species of the Philomidinae are probably also parasitoids of ground-nesting bees.][
]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q118098648
Chalcidoidea
Apocrita families