The Ichneumonidae, also known as ichneumon wasps, ichneumonid wasps, ichneumonids, or Darwin wasps, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with …

Ichneumon wasps are parasitoids, meaning their larvae feed and develop on or within the bodies of other arthropods. They parasitize many insect groups, especially Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), Coleoptera (beetles), and other Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps). Some utilize spiders as hosts.

Ichneumonid wasps are parasitic to other insects. Megarhyssa is a parasite of horntails. Horntails attack dying or recently dead hardwoods, such as oak, maple, birch and elm. Megarhyssa can drill 1/2 inch or more into the wood with its ovipositor to deliver an egg into the horntail larva.

2024年8月16日 · Ichneumonid wasps vary greatly in size and color: many are uniformly colored, from yellowish to black, while others are brightly patterned with black and brown or black and yellow; many have the middle segments of their antennae yellowish or whitish, while others are entirely blackish or brownish.

They have a slender body; very distinct head, thorax and abdomen; two pairs of membranous wings and long, segmented antennae. The female’s needle-like ovipositor (at the tip of the abdomen) is as long as or longer than its body. They are harmless to humans. Note: These wasps are extremely sensitive to most broad-spectrum insecticides.

2022年12月8日 · Ichneumoninae are endoparasitic idiobionts. An idiobiont has a wide range of hosts and it eats, kills, or paralyzes the host immediately after oviposition therefore resulting in no continuation of development. An endoparasite feeds internally on its host whereas an ectoparasite feeds externally.

Ichneumonidae is a diverse family of wasps, typically characterized by a parasitic component to the life cycle, antennae with 16 or more segments, an elongated abdomen, and females with long ovipositors that frequently are longer than their body.

Ichneumonoids are solitary insects, and the vast majority are parasitoids; the larvae feed on or in another insect until it finally dies. Most hosts are holometabolous insect larvae, but there are many exceptions. In general, ichneumonoids are host specific, and only attack one or a few closely related host species.

Ichneumonidae and Braconidae are among the most diverse and abundant parasitoids, particularly the former. With approx. 48 000 described species, published estimates of the true number of species are around the 130 000 mark, with …

2016年12月23日 · Since these ichneumonids mostly kill their hosts, they are called parasitoids, since the interest of “true parasites” must be to keep alive their hosts, since they have no more a free-living stage. Ichneumonids have in nature an enormous impact on the control of pests reaching infestation rates of up to 80 % among their host species.