Afrotropical Vespoidea
(Life: Kingdom: Metazoa (animals); Phylum: Arthropoda; Class: Hexapoda; Order: Hymenoptera)
Bradynobaenidae
Mutillidae
Pompilidae
Rhopalosomatidae
Sapygidae
Scoliidae
Thynnidae
Tiphiidae
Vespidae
Worldwide.
Bradynobaenidae are possibly parasitoids of Sun spiders (Solifugae). Mutillidae are ectoparasitoids of larvae or pupa of other insects. Pompilidae are predators of spiders. Sapygidae are cleptoparasites or ectoparasitoids of bee and wasp larva. Tiphiidae are ectoparasitoids of subterranean or wood-boring beetle larvae (Scarabaeidae, Cerambycidae, Cicindelidae, Tenebrionidae). The female stings each larva before laying an egg on it. Rhopalosomatidae are ectoparasitoids of nymphal crickets (Gryllidae) forming extruding sac-like structures similar to Dryinidae. Scoliidae are external parasitoids of beetle larvae (mostly Scarabaeidae) that live in soil or decaying vegetable matter. Potter or Mason wasps (Eumeninae) nest in holes in the ground, in hollow stems, or construct nests from clay. Females lay an egg in each individual cell and provision the cells with partially paralysed caterpillars. The cell is then sealed. The masarine Pollen wasps provision their nests with pollen and nectar. Paper wasps (Vespinae) are social, constructing communal paper nests. Larvae are fed on chewed-up, soft-bodied insects such as caterpillars.
The re-classification of the Vespoidea into a number of superfamilies proposed by Pilgrim et al. (2008) and adopted by Peters et al. (2017) and Branstetter et al. (2018) has not been followed here yet, for reasons outlined in Brothers (2019). The exception is recognition of the family Thynnidae incorporating various taxa previously included in the Tiphiidae, a hypothesis that appears to have fairly robust support (albeit only based on molecular evidence), and recognition of which has been widely adopted across various platforms. We retain this newly proposed family together with the historically recognized families within the single superfamily Vespoidea, until such time that stronger phylogenetic evidence, based on both molecular as well as morphological appraisal, becomes available for supporting additional splitting at superfamily level within this group.
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Branstetter MG, Childers AK, Cox-Foster D, Hopper KR, Kapheim KM, Toth AL, Worley KC. 2018. Genomes of the Hymenoptera. Current Opinion in Insect Science 25: 65-75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2017.11.008
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Debevec AH, Cardinal S, Danforth BN. 2012. Identifying the sister group to the bees: a molecular phylogeny of Aculeata with an emphasis on the superfamily Apoidea. Zoologica scripta 41: 527-35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1463-6409.2012.00549.x
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Johnson BR, Borowiec ML, Chiu JC, Lee EK, Atallah J, Ward PS. 2013. Phylogenomics resolves evolutionary relationships among ants, bees, and wasps. Current Biology 23: 2058–2062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.08.050
Peters RS, Krogmann L, Mayer C, Donath A, Gunkel S, Meusemann K, Kozlov A, Podsiadlowski L, Petersen M, Lanfear R, Diez PA. 2017. Evolutionary history of the Hymenoptera. Current Biology 27:1013-1018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.027
Pilgrim EM, von Dohlen CD, Pitts JP. 2008. Molecular phylogenetics of Vespoidea indicate paraphyly of the superfamily and novel relationships of its component families and subfamilies. Zoologica Scripta 37: 539–560. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1463-6409.2008.00340.x
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Sharkey, M. J., Carpenter, J. M., Vilhelmsen, L., Heraty, J., Liljeblad, J., Dowling, A. P.G., Schulmeister, S., Murray, D., Deans, A. R., Ronquist, F., Krogmann, L. and Wheeler, W. C. 2012. Phylogenetic relationships among superfamilies of Hymenoptera. Cladistics 28: 80–112. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-0031.2011.00366.x
Photographs © Simon van Noort and Hamish Robertson (Iziko Museums); or © Victor Kolyada (Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) or © Vida van der Walt (Pretoria).