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HYMENOPTERA, Monomachidae (Proctotrupoidea) --  <Images> & <Juveniles>

 

                  [Formerly Monoserphidae <  --  <Images> & <Juveniles>

 

 

                   Monomachidae

Description & Statistics

 

The body of members of this family is about 9.5-11.2 mm long (Masner 1993).  They are sexually dimorphic.  Females have a sickle-shaped attenuated metasoma, males have a pedunculate metasoma.  The mandibles are very huge.  The pronotum has a sharp transverse ridge that is capable of sliding over the anterior part of the mesoscutum.  The propodeum is cone-shaped, without a median keel.  The metacoxa is inserted relatively remote from the propodeal foramen.  The forewing usually has 5 closed cells and a relatively narrow stigma.  The metasomal segment 1 (petiole) is very long and slender, and metasomal tergum 2 consists of 1 tergum that is not the longest segment.  The ovipositor is extremely short, concealed insider the metasomal segment 8.

 

Some Neotropical species are light green and a few multicolored.  In Australia one species has been reared from Stratiomyidae (Diptera).  Adults of the Australian species are active during winter.  In 2 undescribed Neotropical species (from Peru and Chile) the female is micropterous.  The family has 2 genera and ca. 20 rare species, mostly in the New World tropics (Guerrero, Mexico to Argentina and Chile), with only a few additional ones in Australia and New Guinea.  They are all apparently of Southern Hemispheric origin.

 

Key references are Naumann (1985), and Schultz (1911), Musetti & Johnson (2000).

 

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References:   Please refer to  <biology.ref.htm>, [Additional references may be found at: MELVYL Library ]

 

Musetti, L. & N. F. Johnson.. 2000: First documented record of Monomachidae (Hymenoptera: Proctotrupoidea) in New Guinea, and description of two new species. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, 102: 957-963.

 

Musetti, L. & N. F. Johnson. 2004: Revision of the New World species of the genus Monomachus Klug (Hymenoptera: Proctotrupoidea, Monomachidae). Canadian entomologist, 136: 501-552.

 

Naumann, I. D. 1985: The Australian species of Monomachidae (Hymenoptera: Proctotrupoidea), with a revised diagnosis of the family. Journal of the Australian Entomological Society, 24: 261-274.