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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hymenoptera |
Adults 1.5–10 mm long. Solitary insects.
Head. Antennal segments 10 (in both sexes). Antennae geniculate.
Thorax. Pronotum short, not extending back to the tegulae. Cenchri absent. Wings present, or absent (some females). Fore-wings with a conspicuous pterostigma; with the venation well developed (but reduced apically). Closed fore-wing cells 6–10. Hind-wings without closed cells. Fore femur dilated, or not noticeably dilated. Hind femur without a well defined trochantellus. Hind tibiae with spurs specialised for a cleaning rôle (?).
Abdomen. The abdomen with a marked basal constriction. The ‘waist’ simple. Visible abdominal segments 6 (females), or 7 (males). Ovipositor of females not visibly protruding; modified as a retractable sting.
Larvae. Larvae legless or the legs vestigial; parasitic on hosts selected by the mother (being mostly ectoparasites of Homoptera, Lepidoptera and Coleoptera).
General comments. The females often with chelate fore-tarsi.
British representation. Species in Britain 46; Agonatopoides, Anteon, Aphelopus, Chelogynus, Dicondylus, Donisthorpina, Dryinus, Gonatopus, Mesodryinus, Monogonatopus, Mystrophorus, Neogonatopus, Plectrogonatopus, Pseudogonatopus, Prenanteon, Tetrodontochelys.
Classification. Suborder Apocrita; Series Aculeata; Superfamily Chrysidoidea (sometimes referred to the superfamily Bethyloidea).
Illustrations. • Anteon cursor (Haliday) (Irish Dryinus: B. Ent. 206). • Anteon cursor (detail: B. Ent. 206). • Anteon cursor (dissections: B. Ent. 206). • Anteon cursor (legend and species type description: B. Ent. 206). • Anteon cursor: B. Ent. 206, text cont.. • Anteon flavicorne: Stephens, 1846.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hymenoptera. Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
