page_title: Sphecidae
section_title: Family Sphecidae (sensu stricto)
hierarchical_section_title: Sphecidae / Phylogeny / Family Sphecidae (sensu stricto)
caption_attribution_description: English: Sphecidae Ottawa, Ontario
context_page_description: The Sphecidae are a cosmopolitan family of wasps of the suborder Apocrita that includes sand wasps, mud daubers, and other thread-waisted wasps.
  The name Sphecidae was formerly given to a much larger grouping of wasps. This was found to be paraphyletic, so most of the old subfamilies have been moved to the Crabronidae.
context_section_description: The old digger wasp family Sphecidae (sensu lato) was paraphyletic and has been broken up. Only the following subfamilies remain in the new family Sphecidae (sensu stricto) which is (2014) presumed to be a clade.
  Subfamily Ammophilinae
  Ammophila
  Eremnophila
  Eremochares
  Hoplammophila
  Parapsammophila
  Podalonia
  Subfamily Chloriontinae
  Chlorion
  Subfamily Sceliphrinae
  Chalybion
  Dynatus
  Penepodium
  Podium
  Sceliphron
  Trigonopsis
  Subfamily Sphecinae
  Chilosphex
  Isodontia
  Palmodes
  Prionyx
  Sphex
  Stangeella
  Both of the traditional definitions of the Sphecidae (the conservative one, where all the sphecoid wasps other than ampulicids and heterogynaids were in a single large family, and the more refined one, where the seven large sphecid subfamilies were each elevated to family rank) have recently been shown to be paraphyletic, and the most recent classification is closer to the conservative scheme; the families Heterogynaidae and Ampulicidae are the sister taxa to what are now two families (instead of one), the Sphecidae and Crabronidae. Thus, the bulk of the sphecoid wasps are now placed in Crabronidae, and the Sphecidae per se are much more restricted in concept, equivalent to what used to be the subfamily Sphecinae.
caption: Sceliphrinae: Chalybion californicum
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