Australian insectsFroggatt, Walter W. (Walter Wilson)
Science
Australian insects
Froggatt, Walter W. (Walter Wilson)
Insects -- Australia
The Genus _Gasteruption_, which takes the place of the Genus _Foenus_
in the earlier catalogues, contains 36 described species from
Australia; as they are rare insects, there are probably many more to be
discovered. Nothing is known about their habits for certain, but they
are supposed to be parasitic upon the larvae of wood boring insects;
I have generally found them flying round the trunk of a dead or burnt
tree. They differ from the former genus in having the head almost
globular, with antennae standing out straight in front, and large oval
eyes on the sides; the thorax is more elongate, rounded in front, so
that the insect appears to have a slight neck. The abdomen springs from
a rounded node on the thorax, with the basal segments slender, swelling
out gradually, and broadest at the tip; the females bear a very long
hair-like ovipositor. The legs are slender, the hind pair longest,
with both the thighs and apical half of the tibiae thickened in a very
distinctive manner. Ten species are described from Sydney; and one,
_Gasteruption pedunculatum_, is also common to New Zealand.
The Genus _Aulacus_ contains ten described species of smaller insects.
_Aulacus apicalis_ is parasitic upon the larvae of a longicorn beetle
(_Piesarthrius marginellus_). I have found as many as fifty, each
enclosed in a thin parchment cocoon, all matted together in a single
cavity. This little wasp has a long extended ovipositor, and measures
about ½ an inch in length; the head and greater portion of the abdomen
is black, the rest reddish brown, with a blotch of yellow on the upper
surface of the base of the abdomen; the hyaline wings are tipped with
black.
Family 12. Long-tailed Wasps.
MEGALYRIDAE.
These remarkable parasitic wasps, peculiar to Australia, are comprised
in a single genus containing 16 species, none of which are very common.
They are all shining black insects; the head short, broad and almost
rounded, the thorax broad and stout, both very rugose and clothed
with fine silvery hairs on the sides; the eyes large, circular, and
very prominent; ocelli small; the antennae composed of irregular wiry
joints; the wings semitransparent, generally banded with black, and
the transverse nervures wanting in the apical half; legs long, with
the thighs thickened. The abdomen is closely attached to the thorax,
cylindrical, tapering to the extremity, and in the females furnished
with an ovipositor often more than three times the whole length of the
insect, looking exactly like three black horse-hairs. These elongated
ovipositors are used for depositing their eggs in the wood-boring
larvae of longicorn beetles belonging to the Genus _Phoracantha_,
and probably others of like habits, which feed under the bark in the
sap wood of different eucalypts. The perfect insects are generally
found about flowers on low shrubs in summer.
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