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Podalonia Fernald

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

Podalonia Fernald, 1927.

Podalonia canescens (Dahlbom, 1843)

Distribution

Aldabra Islands, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Yemen.

Also worldwide, except for Neotropical region.

Biology

Excavate shallow, single celled nests in friable soil. Provision nest with a single moth caterpillar (Gess & Gess, 2014). Important pollinators of orchids (Steiner et al. 1994).

Male Podalonia canescens pollinating the sexually deceptive orchid Disa atricapilla. There are multiple pollinia attached to the wasp's underside. For details of this interaction see Steiner et al. (1994). Photograph © Mayur Prag.


Female Podalonia canescens dragging captured and paralyzed caterpillar in Royal Natal National Park. Photograph © Steve Marshall (University of Guelph).


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.

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.

Gess, S.K. & Gess, F.W. 2014. Wasps and bees in southern Africa. SANBI Biodiversity Series 24. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. 320 pp.

Dollfuss, H. 2015. The Ammophilini wasps of the "Biologiezentrum Linz"- collection in Linz, Austria (part 3) including the genera Ammophila KIRBY, Eremnophila MENKE, Eremochares GRIBODO, Hoplammophila de BEAUMONT and Podalonia FERNALD (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Sphecidae). Linzer biologische Beiträge 47: 413–439

Menke, A.S. 1966. The genera of the Ammophilini (Hymenoptera; Sphecidae). The Canadian Entomologist 98: 147-152.

Steiner, K.E., Whitehead, V.B., Johnson, S.D. 1994. Floral and pollinator divergence in two sexually deceptive South African orchids. American Journal of Botany 81: 185-194. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1537-2197.1994.tb15428.x

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 © Steve Marshall (University of Guelph), or © Mayur Prag.

Map illustration © Simon van Noort (Iziko Museums of South Africa).


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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