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Vespoidea

(Superfamily)

Overview

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Vespoidea is a of order Hymenoptera of class Insecta, although older taxonomic schemes may vary in this categorization, particularly in their recognition of a now-obsolete superfamily Scolioidea. The members of this group are wasps and ants.

Vespoid Families

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Newer research based on four nuclear genes (elongation factor-1a F2 copy, long-wavelength rhodopsin, wingless and the D2–D3 regions of 28S ribosomal RNA (2700 bp in total)) suggest that the higher level relationships need to be changed with Rhopalosomatidae as a sister group of the Vespidae and the clade Rhopalosomatidae + Vespidae as sister to all other vespoids/apoids. Several other groups are also noted to be paraphyletic.[2]

Photos

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Taxonomy

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The Superfamily Vespoidea is a member of the Series Aculeata. Here is the complete "parentage" of Vespoidea:

The Superfamily Vespoidea is further organized into finer groupings including:

Families

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Armaniidae

[more]

Bradynobaenidae

[more]

Falsiformicidae

[more]

Formicidae

Ants are insects of the family Formicidae , and along with the related wasps and bees, they belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. Today, more than 12,000 species are classified with upper estimates of about 14,000 species. They are easily identified by their elbowed antennae and a distinctive node-like structure that forms a slender waist. [more]

Limnetidae

[more]

Mutillidae

Mutillidae are a of wasps whose wingless females resemble ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense hair which may be red, black, white, silver, or gold. They are known for their extremely painful sting, facetiously said to be strong enough to kill a cow, hence the common name cow killer or cow ant is applied to some species. [more]

Pompilidae

Wasps in the family Pompilidae are commonly called spider wasps (in , species may be referred to colloquially as marabunta or marimbondo, though these names can be generally applied to any very large stinging wasps). The family is cosmopolitan, with some 4,200 species in 4 subfamilies. All species are solitary, and most capture and paralyze prey, though members of the subfamily Ceropalinae are cleptoparasites of other pompilids, or ectoparasitoids of living spiders. [more]

Rhopalosomatidae

Rhopalosomatidae is a family of . It contains 37 extant species in four genera. Two fossil genera are known. [more]

Sapygidae

[more]

Scoliidae

Scoliidae, the scoliid , is a small family represented by 6 genera and about 20 species in North America, but they occur worldwide, with a total of around 300 species. They tend to be black, often marked with yellow or orange, and their wing tips are distinctively corrugated. Males are more slender and elongate than females, with longer antennae, but the sexual dimorphism is not as extreme as is common in the Tiphiidae, a closely-related family. [more]

Sierolomorphidae

[more]

Sphecomyrmidae

[more]

Tiphiidae

[more]

Vespidae

The Vespidae are a large (nearly 5,000 species), diverse, cosmopolitan family of , including nearly all the known eusocial wasps and many solitary wasps. Each social wasp colony includes a queen and a number of female workers with varying degrees of sterility relative to the queen. In temperate social species, colonies usually only last one year, dying at the onset of winter. New queens and males (drones) are produced towards the end of the summer, and after mating, the queens hibernate over winter in cracks or other sheltered locations. The nests of most species are constructed out of mud, but polistines and vespines use plant fibers, chewed to form a sort of paper (also true of some stenogastrines). [more]

At least 3,445 species and subspecies belong to the Family Vespidae.

More info about the Family Vespidae may be found here.

References

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  1. ^ Brothers, D. J. 1999. Phylogeny and evolution of wasps, ants and bees (Hymenoptera, Chrysisoidea, Vespoidea, and Apoidea). Zoologica Scripta 28: 233-249.
  2. ^ Pilgrim, E., von Dohlen, C., & Pitts, J. (2008). "Molecular phylogenetics of Vespoidea indicate paraphyly of the superfamily and novel relationships of its component families and subfamilies". Zoologica Scripta 37 (5): 539–560. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2008.00340.x. 

Sources

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Last Revised: September 22, 2009
2009/09/22 12:15:51