Dicopomorpha echmepterygis

Dicopomorpha echmepterygis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Suborder:	Apocrita
Superfamily:	Chalcidoidea
Family:	Mymaridae
Genus:	Dicopomorpha Ogloblin, 1955
Species:	D. echmepterygis
Binomial name
Dicopomorpha echmepterygis Mockford, 1997

Dicopomorpha echmepterygis is a parasitic wasp in the family Mymaridae. The males of this species are the smallest of all known insects. They are blind and wingless and may be no more than 0.139 mm (139 μm) in length (smaller than a single-celled paramecium). Females are 40% larger.^[1] Obviously, the eggs and larvae of this wasp are considerably smaller than the adult.

This species from Costa Rica is an idiobiont parasitoid of the eggs of a lepidopsocid barklouse, Echmepteryx hageni. The adult males mate with their sisters inside the host egg, and die without ever leaving the egg; similar life histories can be found in the wasp family Trichogrammatidae, also in the superfamily Chalcidoidea.

References

1. ^ Jerry E. Gahlhoff, Jr. (1998-04-17). "Chapter 38 — Smallest Adult". Book of Insect Records. University of Florida. http://ufbir.ifas.ufl.edu/chap38.htm. 

• Mockford, E.L. (1997) A new species of Dicopomorpha (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) with diminutive, apterous males. Ann. Ent. Soc. America 90: 115-120.