Myrmosidae | |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Insecta |
Order: | Hymenoptera |
Superfamily: | Vespoidea |
Family: | Myrmosidae |
Genera | |
See text |
See text
The Myrmosidae are a small family of wasps very similar to the Mutillidae. As in mutillids, females are flightless, and are kleptoparasites in the nests of fossorial bees and wasps.
Recent classifications of Vespoidea (beginning in 2008) concluded that the family Mutillidae contained one subfamily that was unrelated to the remainder, and this subfamily was removed to form a separate family Myrmosidae. Myrmosids can be readily distinguished from mutillids by the lack of abdominal "felt lines" in both sexes, and the retention of a distinct pronotum in females (pronotum fused to metanotum in mutillids).