16 New Species of Wasps Discovered in the Nearctic Region

Alloxysta texana

Researchers have found 16 new species of wasps from the Nearctic region from specimens in the United States National Museum of Natural History and in the Canadian National Collection of Insects. Of the 16 discovered, seven of these have been described and illustrated.

Wasps are insects and cataloged under order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita. Contrary to belief, they are not related to bees or ants. Wasps prey on other insects. Some parasitic wasps are used as a deterrent against other pests in agricultural environments. Since they prey on just the pests, there is minimal crop damage caused by using them.

Most wasps are solitary and do not sting or attack humans. Only a few are aggressive such as the Yellow Jacket. Wasps are distinguishable from bees by their pointed lower abdomens and the narrow "waist," called a petiole, that separates the abdomen from the thorax. There are about 30,000 sub species of wasps identified to date.

The Nearctic zone includes most of North America as well as Greenland and the highlands of Mexico.

New Wasp Species Discovered in Indonesia: Megalara Garuda, The King of Wasps

Wasps are insects in the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita. These insects are neither a subspecies of the bee or of the ant.

Wasps prey on other insects. Wasps contribute to the natural control and natural biocontrol of other species. Parasitic wasps are increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they prey mostly on pest insects and have little impact on crops.

Contrary to popular belief, most wasps are solitary and do not sting or attack humans. Only a few are aggressive such as the Yellow Jacket. Wasps are distinguishable from bees by their pointed lower abdomens and the narrow "waist," called a petiole, that separates the abdomen from the thorax. There are about 30,000 sub species of wasps identified to date.

A new and unusual wasp species has been discovered during an expedition to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

It was independently also found in the insect collections of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, where it was awaiting discovery since the 1930s, when it had been collected on Sulawesi. The new species is pitch-black, has an enormous body size, and its males have long, sickle-shaped jaws. The findings have now been described in the open access journal ZooKeys.