edgepedia

Scelionidae and Dryinidae

9 articles

Anteon

Anteon Jurine, 1807 is a cosmopolitan genus of dryinid parasitoid wasps attacking leafhoppers; largest Anteoninae genus with 464 species, extreme sexual dimorphism, and DNA barcoding used to link sexes and delimit species.

Dryinidae

Dryinidae (pincer wasps, dryinid wasps), family of solitary chrysidoid wasps; larvae parasitize Auchenorrhyncha hoppers; females bear pincer-like fore tarsi; over 1900 species worldwide except Antarctica.

Gonatopus (wasp)

Gonatopus (Ljungh, 1810) is a genus of pincer wasps (Dryinidae, Gonatopodinae), third most diverse in the family with 441 species, whose females parasitize and host-feed on leafhoppers and planthoppers worldwide.

Scelionid biology and host associations

Scelionid wasps are egg parasitoids: females lay their eggs inside the eggs of stink bugs, moths, and other insects, and several species are used in biological control.

Scelionidae

Scelionidae, egg-parasitoid wasps of Platygastroidea (Hymenoptera), type genus Scelio, 176 genera; restored as monophyletic in the 2021 eight-family revision after splitting off Neuroscelionidae and Sparasionidae.

Scelioninae

Scelioninae is the largest subfamily of Scelionidae (Platygastroidea), minute egg-parasitoid wasps attacking insects and spiders; about 145 genera, 2,051 species, source of biocontrol agents like Trissolcus and Gryon against stink bugs.

Telenominae

Telenominae, egg parasitoid wasps of Platygastroidea (Scelionidae), also called telenomines; genera Telenomus and Trissolcus; larvae develop inside eggs of Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, Diptera, or Neuroptera, one host order per species; used in biological control.

Trissolcus basalis

Trissolcus basalis (Wollaston, 1858), also Microphanurus basalis, is a 1.5 mm scelionid egg-parasitoid wasp of stink bugs, chiefly Nezara viridula, introduced worldwide for biological control since the 1933 Egypt-to-Australia introduction.

Trissolcus japonicus

Trissolcus japonicus, the samurai wasp (Ashmead, 1904), is a 1–2 mm scelionid egg parasitoid of the brown marmorated stink bug, native to China, Japan, and Korea and the leading classical biological control agent against it in North America and Europe.