Subfamily Ophioninae

Classification · Numbers · Size · Identification · Range · Habitat · Food · Life Cycle · Works Cited

Found on cattleya orchid - Ophion - male

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Class Insecta (Insects)

Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)

No Taxon ("Parasitica" (parasitic Apocrita))

Superfamily Ichneumonoidea (Braconids and Ichneumons)

Family Ichneumonidae (Ichneumon Wasps)

Subfamily Ophioninae

Numbers

32 genera worldwide arranged into 5 genus-groups; 37 spp. in 9 genera north of Mexico(1)(2)

Size

6-29 mm

Identification

Ocelli (usually?) large. Females have a very compressed abdomen and a short, very sharp ovipositor. The ovipositor can penetrate the human skin; most other ichneumons can't 'sting'.

Key to genera

Range

worldwide(1)

Habitat

Wide range of habitats. Most species are crepuscular or nocturnal, some diurnal. They are known to come to lights.

Food

Solitary koinobiont endoparasitoids of the larvae of other holometabolous insects, mostly Lepidoptera, although a Nearctic species of Ophion is known to parasitize a beetle larva(3); the most usual hosts are moth larvae that feed exposed on vegetation, especially members of Noctuidae, Lasiocampidae, Lymantriidae, Saturniidae, Geometridae, Arctiidae, and Sphingidae.(4)

Life Cycle

summarized in(4)

Works Cited

1.	Classification and Systematics of the Ichneumonidae

2.	Ichneumonidae Database, By R.W. Carlson

3.	Borror and DeLong's Introduction to the Study of Insects By Norman F. Johnson, Charles A. Triplehorn

4.	Genera Ichneumonorum Nearcticae

Contributed by john and jane balaban on 22 February, 2006 - 10:25pm
Additional contributions by Beatriz Moisset, Hartmut Wisch, Vox Sciurorum, v belov
Last updated 4 February, 2010 - 11:09pm

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