Ichneumon-flies of America North of Mexico pt. 2: Subfamilies Ephialtinae, Xoridinae, and Acaenitinae

Allochares Azureus: An Unusual Wasp Exploits Unusual Prey (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae; Arachnida: Filistatidae)

“…A. azureus is apparently unique among pompilids in its use of the web for deposition of the spider and in having a larva that feeds and constructs its cocoon in the web. This is not to say that A. azureus occupies a previously unexploited adaptive zone, as members of the entire ichneumonid tribe Polysphinctini are very similar to A. azureus in larval habits (Townes and Townes 1960).…”

Revision of North American species of Clistopyga (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Pimplinae)

“…Gauld (1991) proposed that species of the genus might be idiobiont ectoparasitoids of adult spiders, but some species have been reported to parasitise spider egg-sacs (like Tromatobia) (Townes and Townes 1960;Fitton et al 1988;Gauld et al 1998); some species have been observed attacking spiders protecting their eggs (like Zaglyptus) and other Clistopyga species attacking adult spiders hiding in nest, placing their eggs to prosoma and developing as koinobionts (Gauld et al 1998). The first evidence that Clistopyga attacks spider egg-sacs was recorded by Nielsen (1929) who reared the European species Clistopyga incitator Fabricius, 1793 (the type species of the genus) from an egg sac of Segestria senoculata (Linnaeus, 1758) (Araneae: Segestriidae); later Townes and Townes (1960) recorded the North American species C. manni from the egg nest of Agelenopsis Giebel, 1869 (Araneae: Agelenidae), and another European species, C. rufator Holmgren, 1856, was recorded from the egg nest of Clubiona Latreille, 1804 (Araneae: Clubionidae) (Fitton et al 1988). However, in all cases it is not clear whether the adult ichneumonid kills the spider or if the ichneumonid larvae consume part of the spider (Gauld 1991).…”

“…In earlier papers, most authors (Townes and Townes 1960;Townes 1969;Kasparyan 1981;Gauld 1984) classified Clistopyga, Tromatobia Förster, 1869 and Zaglyptus Förster, 1869 within the tribe Ephialtini, with other spider-attacking pimplines assigned to the tribe Polysphinctini. Gauld (1991) included these three genera in the Tromatobia genus-group within the tribe Ephialtini.…”

Mexican species of Labena Cresson (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae) with description of a new species

“…Seven species are known from Australia (Gauld and Holloway 1986), two species occur in the U.S.A. and Canada (Townes and Townes 1960), 21 in Costa Rica (Gauld 2000), and 11 in South America, including Bermuda and Grenada Townes 1966, Yu et al 2005). Th e real number of Neotropical species is much greater, Gauld (2000) mentioned at least 50 species for this region.…”