''Pelecinus polyturator'' is a species of

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 ...

in the family

Pelecinidae Pelecinidae is a family of parasitic wasps in the superfamily Proctotrupoidea. It contains only one living genus, '' Pelecinus'', with three species known from the Americas. The earliest fossil species are known from the Jurassic, and the group ...

. The large (up to 7 cm) glossy black insects are the most common and well-known members of the family. The adults drink nectar, and they live in crop fields, woods, and suburban gardens throughout North, Central, and South America. Their antennae are long and the females have an elongated, cylindrical, articulated

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 ...

. They are

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 that lay their eggs directly into

grub GNU GRUB (short for GNU GRand Unified Bootloader, commonly referred to as GRUB) is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a use ...

s of the June beetle (genus ''

Phyllophaga ''Phyllophaga'' is a very large genus (more than 900 species) of New World scarab beetles in the subfamily Melolonthinae. Common names for this genus and many other related genera in the subfamily Melolonthinae are May beetles, June bugs, and J ...

'') buried in the soil. The adults can be found in the late summer. Some populations of ''Pelecinus polyturator'' are

parthenogenic Parthenogenesis (; from the Greek + ) is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which the embryo develops directly from an egg without need for fertilization. In animals, parthenogenesis means the development of an embryo from an unfertiliz ...

; females do not require fertilization by males to reproduce. Females are common throughout its range, but males are rare in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

specially in some populations, and more prevalent further south.

References

*Baker, P. Eastern Forest Insects. By Whiteford L. Baker. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Forest Service, 1972—description, habits

External links

''Pelecinus polyturator'' species account at bugguide.net
Proctotrupoidea Insects described in 1773 Hymenoptera of North America Hymenoptera of South America Taxa named by Dru Drury {{Wasp-stub