Latest Braconidae Stories

Pensoft Publishers 1 of 3 recently discovered wasp species was named after Beatrix Kiddo, referring to the deadly parasitoid practices of the animal Parasitoid wasps of the family Braconidae are known for their deadly reproductive habits. Most of the representatives of this group have their eggs developing in other insects and their larvae, eventually killing the respective host, or in some cases immobilizing it or causing its sterility. Three new species of the parasitoid wasp genus...

Flight attacks of small parasitoid wasps (no larger than 2.0 mm in size) on ant workers have been filmed by José María Gómez Durán from Madrid. The four species of wasps show amazing adaptations and enormous differences in the tactics they use. Two of the four filmed species are new to science and are described by Dr Kees van Achterberg from NCB Naturalis Leiden. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Ants are a very dominant group in nature and well-equipped to...

A tiny wasp that lays its eggs under the skin of unwitting caterpillars belongs to one of the most diverse groups of insects on Earth. Now researchers report that its diversity is even higher than previously thought.By combining ecological and genetic data with the painstaking detective work of taxonomy, the researchers have dramatically increased "“ nearly doubling "“ the estimated number of species reported of six very species-rich genera of parasitoid wasps.The subfamily to which these...