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Sphecidae (Latreille
Pierre André Latreille

Pierre Andr? Latreille was a France entomology. His works describing insects assigned many of the insect taxa still in use today.Latreille was born into a humble family of Brive-la-Gaillarde, Corr?ze, and in 1778 entered the Jean Lemoine in Paris....
, 1802) is a cosmopolitan family of wasp
WAsP

WAsP is a PC program for predicting wind climates, wind resources, and power productions from wind turbines and wind farms. The predictions are based on wind data measured at stations in the same region....
s that include digger wasp
Digger wasp

Wasps of the genus Sphex are cosmopolitan predators of the family Sphecidae that sting and paralyze prey insects. There are over 130 known digger wasp species....
s, mud dauber
Mud dauber

Mud dauber is a name commonly applied to a number of wasps from either the family Sphecidae or Crabronidae that build their nests from mud. Mud dauber may refer to any of the following common species:...
s and other familiar types that all fall under the category of thread-waisted wasps. Both of the traditional definitions of the Sphecidae (the conservative one, where all the sphecoid wasps other than ampulicids and heterogynaids were in a single large family, and the more refined one, where the 7 large sphecid subfamilies were each elevated to family rank) have recently been shown to be paraphyletic, and the most recent classification is closer to the conservative scheme; the families Heterogynaidae and Ampulicidae
Ampulicidae

The Ampulicidae, or Cockroach wasps, is a small , primarily tropical group of Spheciformes wasps, all of which use various Blattodea as prey items for their larvae....
 are the sister taxa to what are now two families (instead of one), the Sphecidae and Crabronidae
Crabronidae

Crabronidae is a large family of wasps, that includes nearly all of the species formerly comprising the now-defunct superfamily Sphecoidea. It collectively includes well over 200 genera, containing well over 9000 species....
.






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Sphecidae (Latreille
Pierre André Latreille

Pierre Andr? Latreille was a France entomology. His works describing insects assigned many of the insect taxa still in use today.Latreille was born into a humble family of Brive-la-Gaillarde, Corr?ze, and in 1778 entered the Jean Lemoine in Paris....
, 1802) is a cosmopolitan family of wasp
WAsP

WAsP is a PC program for predicting wind climates, wind resources, and power productions from wind turbines and wind farms. The predictions are based on wind data measured at stations in the same region....
s that include digger wasp
Digger wasp

Wasps of the genus Sphex are cosmopolitan predators of the family Sphecidae that sting and paralyze prey insects. There are over 130 known digger wasp species....
s, mud dauber
Mud dauber

Mud dauber is a name commonly applied to a number of wasps from either the family Sphecidae or Crabronidae that build their nests from mud. Mud dauber may refer to any of the following common species:...
s and other familiar types that all fall under the category of thread-waisted wasps. Both of the traditional definitions of the Sphecidae (the conservative one, where all the sphecoid wasps other than ampulicids and heterogynaids were in a single large family, and the more refined one, where the 7 large sphecid subfamilies were each elevated to family rank) have recently been shown to be paraphyletic, and the most recent classification is closer to the conservative scheme; the families Heterogynaidae and Ampulicidae
Ampulicidae

The Ampulicidae, or Cockroach wasps, is a small , primarily tropical group of Spheciformes wasps, all of which use various Blattodea as prey items for their larvae....
 are the sister taxa to what are now two families (instead of one), the Sphecidae and Crabronidae
Crabronidae

Crabronidae is a large family of wasps, that includes nearly all of the species formerly comprising the now-defunct superfamily Sphecoidea. It collectively includes well over 200 genera, containing well over 9000 species....
. Thus, the bulk of the sphecoid wasps are now placed in Crabronidae, and Sphecidae per se is a much more restricted concept, equivalent to what used to be the subfamily Sphecinae.

The biology of the Sphecidae, even under the restricted definition, is still fairly diverse; some sceliphrines even display rudimentary forms of sociality, and some sphecines rear multiple larvae in a single large brood cell. Many nest in pre-existing cavities, or dig simple burrows in the soil, but there are also species which construct free-standing nests of mud and even (in one genus) resin. All are predatory, but the type of prey ranges from spider
Spider

Spiders are air-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae modified into fangs that inject venom. In their bodies the usual arthropod segments are fused into two Tagma , the cephalothorax and abdomen, joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel....
s to various dictyoptera
Dictyoptera

Dictyoptera includes three groups of polyneopterous insects - cockroaches , termites and mantids . While all modern Dictyoptera have short ovipositors, the oldest fossils of Dictyoptera have long ovipositors, much like members of the Orthoptera....
ns or orthopteroids to caterpillars (of either Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is an order of insect that includes moths and butterfly. It is one of the most speciose orders in the class Insecta, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterfly, skipper , and Hedylidae....
 or other Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera

Hymenoptera is one of the larger order s of insects, comprising the sawfly, wasps, bees, and ants. The name refers to the membranous wings of the insects, and is derived from the Ancient Greek language wikt:???? : membrane and wikt:pte??? : wing....
); the vast majority practice mass provisioning
Mass provisioning

Mass provisioning is a term used in entomology to refer to a form of parental behavior in which an adult stocks all of the food for each offspring in a small chamber prior to laying the egg....
, providing all the prey items prior to laying the egg.

Subgroups


Subfamily Ammophilinae
  • Ammophila
  • Podalonia, etc
Subfamily Sceliphrinae
  • Chlorion
  • Sceliphron
    Sceliphron

    Sceliphron is a genus of Hymenoptera of the Sphecidae family, commonly referred to as mud daubers. They are solitary and build nests made of mud....
  • Stangeella, etc
Subfamily Sphecinae
  • Chilosphex
  • Isodontia
  • Palmodes
  • Prionyx
  • Sphex, etc


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