Species Aleiodes stigmator - Stigmata Mummy Wasp

a-lee-OH-deez STIG-mah-tor

"The name 'stigmata mummy-wasp' is a reference to the exit holes that are produced in the host caterpillar. Thomas Say thought they looked like the stigmata in the hands and feet of the Christ." - Shaw 2006

4–5 mm

Body mostly honey-yellow except metanotum and propodeum brown to black. Metasoma sometimes with first tergite dark brown- black. Can be distinguished from similar species by strongly pectinate tarsal claws, with teeth located along the entire length of the claw, distinct from others in which tarsal teeth are at most located basally.

Widely distributed across Canada and northern U.S.

Generally associated with wetlands and near cattails and willows.

Adults emerge from mummies in late summer and early autumn.

A. stigmatoris the only gregarious Aleiodes parasitoid in the Nearctic so far as known. Hosts include various noctuids in genus Acronicta, including Simyra henrici, and some Catocala species.

The host remains (mummies) of A. stigmator are easily distinguished by the numerous exit holes from which adult parasitoids emerged. Aleiodes stigmator are quite similar to other Aleiodes species within the same size range and having similar color and ocellar size (smaller or about equal to distance from lateral ocellus to eye). The most distinctive characteristic which separates this species from similar species is the strongly pectinate tarsal claws of this species. See Figure 2d in Fortier & Shaw 1999 (citation below).

This is the oldest described Nearctic species, described by Thomas Say in 1824.

Mason, W. R. M. 1979. A new Rogas (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) prasite of tent caterpillars (Malacosoma spp. Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) in Canada. Canadian Entomologist 111:783-786.

Fortier, J. C. and S. R. Shaw. 1999. Cladistics of the Aleiodes Lineage of the Subfamily Rogadinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 8(2).

Shaw, S. R. 2006. Aleiodes Wasps of Eastern Forests: A Guide to Parasitoids and Associated Mummified Caterpillars. Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team.