Encyrtidae

Taxobox
name = Encyrtidae


image_width = 250px
image_caption = "Anicetus communis"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Hymenoptera
subordo = Apocrita
superfamilia = Chalcidoidea
familia = Encyrtidae
familia_authority = Walker, 1837
diversity = 2 subfamilies
c.455 genera
c.3710 species
diversity_link = biodiversity
subdivision_ranks = Subfamilies
subdivision =
Encyrtinae
Tetracneminae

Encyrtidae is a large family of parasitic wasps, with some 3710 described species in some 455 genera. The larvae of the majority are primary parasitoids on Hemiptera, though other hosts are attacked, and details of the life history can be variable (e.g., some attack eggs, some attack larvae,others are hyperparasites and there are even Encyrtidae that develops as parasitoids of ticks). They are found throughout the world in virtually all habitats, and are extremely important as biological control agents.

Some species exhibit a remarkable developmental phenomenon called "polyembryony", in which a single egg multiplies clonally in the host and produces large numbers of identical adult wasps. Even more remarkably, some of the larvae are larger than the others and act similar to the "soldiers" of eusocial insects, attacking any other wasp larvae already in the body of the host, and dying without reproducing ("altruism").

They are relatively easy to separate from other Chalcidoidea by features of the wing venation, the migration of the cerci forwards on the metasoma (and accompanying distortion of the tergites), and a greatly enlarged mesopleuron with anteriorly-positioned mesocoxae.

External links

* [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/chalcidoids/encyrtidae.html Universal Chalcidoidea Database]
* [http://konchudb.agr.agr.kyushu-u.ac.jp/tobikobachi/ Image Database TOBIKOBACHI Based on the Encyrtid Wasp Collection of Dr. T. Tachikawa]
* [http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/beneficial/a_citricola.htm "Ageniaspis citricola"] on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site