Vespoidea

About: Vespoidea is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1365 publications have been published within this topic receiving 11769 citations.

An annotated distributional checklist of Vespidae (Hymenoptera: Vespoidea) of India

Abstract: This study presents a checklist of the vespid wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) of India. A total of 288 species belonging to 60 genera and 5 subfamilies of Vespidae are known to occur within the political boundaries of India. A complete list of species, comprising valid scientific names, synonyms, geographical distribution within and outside India, along with references, is provided. One new synonymy is proposed.

A new Panama Eciton (Hymenoptera, Formicidae).

Abstract: The ants of the genus Eciton are the conspicuous terrestrial army ants of the American tropics. Those species having soldiers with large, fishhook-shaped mandibles are few in number, and constitute the subgenus Eciton. Eciton hamatum and burchelli occur over a large area of the American tropics and have been the chief subjects of the well-known studies by T. C. Schneirla, particularly from the point of view of their fascinating behavior and the underlying biological processes concerning brood production which condition it very intimately. Schneirla, in the course of studies on Panama ecitons in late 1947, took a species of the subgenus Eciton which is described below. The species of this subgenus are so highly polymorphic that considerable caution is advisable in describing new forms until the range of variability has been worked out. The data obtained by Schneirla, however, warrant a name for his species, so clearly distinct morphologically from hacmatum and burchelli. The taxonomic history of the species of Eciton is a story of unusual confusion. The early collectors in the American tropics occasionally took the winged males at lights, along with other insects, and these were described as wasps. In the meanwhile the large soldier caste with mandibles like fishhooks had been described under various generic names. The realization that the males were really ants came much later. Still later came the correlating of males with soldiers or workers, a process which is likely to go on for some time, since many species are still known by only the male or only the soldier and worker castes.