Encyrtidae
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| 2 subfamilies c.455 genera c.3710 species |
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Encyrtinae |
Encyrtidae is a large family of parasitic wasps, with some 3710 described species in some 455 genera. The larvae of the majority are primary parasitoids on Hemiptera, though other hosts are attacked, and details of the life history can be variable (e.g., some attack eggs, some attack larvae, and others are hyperparasites). They are found throughout the world in virtually all habitats, and are extremely important as biological control agents.
Some species exhibit a remarkable developmental phenomenon called "polyembryony", in which a single egg multiplies clonally in the host and produces large numbers of identical adult wasps. Even more remarkably, some of the larvae are larger than the others and act similar to the "soldiers" of eusocial insects, attacking any other wasp larvae already in the body of the host, and dying without reproducing ("altruism").
They are relatively easy to separate from other Chalcidoidea by features of the wing venation, the migration of the cerci forwards on the metasoma (and accompanying distortion of the tergites), and a greatly enlarged acropleuron with anteriorly-positioned mesocoxae.
