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Family Megalyridae
- This page contains pictures and information about the Long-tailed Wasps
that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
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- They are called Long-tailed Wasps because females have the very long
ovipositor, some species have "tail" as long as eight times their
body length. They usually have dark body and banded wings.
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- Insects in family Megalyridae are parasitoid wasps. Megalyridae is a small
family and those wasps are rare. It is believed that their larvae are parasitoids of wood-boring beetle larvae or pupae of the families
Cerambycidae and Buprestidae.
Some may parasitises mud-nesting Sphecid wasp larvae.
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 - Male, body length 15mm
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- In pictures the wasp was a male which was found in Anstead Forest on 30 Dec 2009. The wasp was
searching for something on a fallen log.
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- Larvae in this family are external-parasitoids of wood-boring beetles. The
female wasps come here searching for host tunnel and the new female may emerge.
We believed the male wasp we found was looking for females there.
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- Notice the wasp's antenna is 14-segmented, which is the characteristic of
the family Megalyridae wasps. Its head is round like a ball. The legs
are reddish-brown in colour.
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- Reference:
- 1. Insects
of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University
Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 940.
- 2. Northern
Territory Insects, A Comprehensive Guide CD - Graham Brown, 2009.
- 3. What
wasp is that? - An interactive identification guide to the
Australasian families of Hymenoptera, 2007.
- 4. A Taxonomic Revision of the Long-tailed Wasps of the Genus Megalyra Westwood (Hymenoptera : Megalyridae) - Shaw, S.R. 1990. Invertebrate Taxonomy 3: 1005-1052
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- [ Up ] [ MEGALYRIDAE ] [ EVANIIDAE ] [ GASTERUPTIIDAE ] [ CHALCIDIDAE ] [ TORYMIDAE ] [ PTEROMALIDAE ] [ EUPELMIDAE ] [ CHRYSIDIDAE ] [ Other Parasitic Wasp ]
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