What insects belong to Hymenoptera?
Hymenoptera is one of the largest orders of insects and includes many species of bees, wasps, hornets, sawflies, and ants. The word Hymenoptera is derived from the ancient Greek words for hymen, meaning membrane, and pteron, translated to wing.
What do all Hymenoptera have in common?
Hymenoptera characteristically have two pairs of wings, a large fore pair and a smaller hind pair. These wings are held together by a series of hooks (called a frenulum) and may appear like a single pair to the naked eye.
How many species of Hymenoptera are there?
Hymenoptera is a large order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones.
What families are in Hymenoptera?
Family Argidae – Argid Sawflies.
Why are ants in Hymenoptera?
Collectively, the Hymenoptera are most important to humans as pollinators of wild and cultivated flowering plants, as parasites of destructive insects, and as makers of honey. The order includes the best known of the social insects—ants and some species of bees and wasps. Most species, however, are solitary in habit.
Are ants and bees related?
Ants and bees – which by all appearances seem so different – are creepy-crawly cousins, according to new research published in a recent issue of Current Biology. The new findings show unequivocally that ants’ closest living relatives are a superfamily called Apoidea, which includes bees and some solitary hunting wasps.
What are the two suborders of the Hymenoptera?
The Hymenoptera is divided into two suborders: Symphyta (sawflies and horntails) have a broad junction between thorax and abdomen Apocrita (ants, bees, and wasps) have a narrow junction between the thorax and abdomen. Distribution: Common worldwide. Third largest order of insects.
When did the first Hymenoptera appear on Earth?
Hymenoptera originated in the Triassic, with the oldest fossils belonging to the family Xyelidae. Social hymenopterans appeared during the Cretaceous. The evolution of this group has been intensively studied by Alex Rasnitsyn, Michael S. Engel, and others. This clade has been studied by examining the mitochondrial DNA.
Which is the only order besides the Isoptera to have evolved social systems?
The Hymenoptera is the only order besides the Isoptera (termites) to have evolved complex social systems with division of labor. Herbivory is common among the primitive Hymenoptera (suborder Symphyta), in the gall wasps (Cynipidae), and in some of the ants and bees.
How does a Hymenoptera look like a caterpillar?
In the suborder Symphyta, the larvae resemble caterpillars in appearance, and like them, typically feed on leaves. They have large chewing mandibles, three pairs of thoracic limbs, and, in most cases, six or eight abdominal prolegs.