Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada

Subfamily Brachycistidinae

Hymenoptera - Colocistis crassa - male 2nd Tiphiid Wasp (ventral) - Colocistis crassa - male Wasp for ID - Brachycistis - male Red wasp with red antennae - Brachycistis - male Male, Mutillidae? - Colocistis - male Aculeate wasp - male Mutillidae - Brachycistis Male, Colocistis crassa? - Colocistis - male
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon (Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps)
Superfamily Tiphioidea
Family Tiphiidae (Tiphiid Wasps)
Subfamily Brachycistidinae
Other Common Names
nocturnal tiphiid wasps (only applies to the western hemisphere species)
Explanation of Names
Brachycistidinae Kimsey 1991
Numbers
66 spp. in 10 genera in our area; ~80 spp. in 12 genera total(1)
not yet in the guide (sp.#): Brachycistellus (1) · Brachycistina (1) · Glyptacros (5) · Hadrocistis (2) · Paraquemaya (1 in our area, 4 total) · Sedomaya (1)
Identification
no felt line on tergite II, unlike in Mutillidae & Bradynobaenidae (William Ericson's comment)
Range
w. NA
Habitat
females are wingless and burrow in sand, only coming out to breed; males are nocturnal and come to light, sometimes by the thousands
Food
the only recoded host for the subfamily is larva of Eusattus or a closely related tenbrionid (Borowiec & Kimsey 2015)