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Ampulicinae

Cockroach wasps of the Afrotropical region

(Life: Kingdom: Metazoa (animals); Phylum: Arthropoda; Class: Hexapoda; Order: Hymenoptera; Superfamily: Apoidea; Family: Ampulicidae)

Classification

Ampulex Jurine
 

Trirogma Westwood, 1841 (Extralimital: Oriental, Palaearctic regions)

Distribution

Worldwide
Ampulex_with_prey_Deropeltis_Dion_Brandt
Ampulex_with_prey_Deropeltis_Dion_Brandt Ampulex_with_prey_Deropeltis_Dion_Brandt
A female Ampulex dragging its paralysed prey item Deropeltis erythrocephala to a nest site (Photographs © Dion Brandt)

Biology

Nest in stems and crevices. Prey on cockroaches, which are weakly paralysed and dragged backwards by the wasp to the nest. The nest is provisioned with only one cockroach and the egg is laid on the mid-coxa. The nest is closed with plant debris.

References

Bohart, R.M. & Menke, A. S. 1976. Sphecid Wasps of the World: a Generic Revision. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.

Brothers D.J. 1999. Phylogeny and evolution of wasps, ants and bees (Hymenoptera, Chrysidoidea, Vespoidea and Apoidea) Zoologica Scripta 28: 233–250.

Dollfuss, H. 2017. The Ampulicidae wasps of the “Biologiezentrum-Linz”-collection in Linz, Austria, including the genera Ampulex Jurine, Dolichurus Latreille, and Trirogma Westwood (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Ampulicidae). Linzer biologische Beiträge 49: 441–457.

Finnamore, A.T. & Michener, C.D. 1993. Superfamily Apoidea (pp. 279-357). In GOULET, H. & HUBER, J. (eds). Hymenoptera of the World: an identification guide to families. Research Branch, Agriculture Canada, Ottawa, Canada, 668 pp.

Gadallah NS. 2020. Biodiversity of the aculeate wasps (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) of the Arabian Peninsula: Apoidea (Spheciformes), Ampulicidae. Zootaxa 4754(1): 17–19.

Soliman AM, Gadallah NS, Ohl M & Dhafer HMA. 2017. Revision of the digger wasps of the Ampulicidae and Heterogynaidae (Hymenoptera) of Saudi Arabia, with the description of a new species of the enigmatic genus Heterogyna Nagy. Journal of Natural History 51: 2057-2085. DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2017.1355492.

Links

CATALOG OF WORLD SPHECIDAE sensu lato (= Apoidea excluding bees) compiled by
Wojciech J. Pulawski (California Academy of Sciences).

Credits

Photographs © Simon van Noort (Iziko Museums of South Africa) or © Dion Brandt.


Web author Simon van Noort (Iziko South African Museum)

 

Citation: van Noort, S. 2024. WaspWeb: Hymenoptera of the World. URL: www.waspweb.org (accessed on <day/month/year>).

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