Pronunciation
a-lee-OH-deez STIG-mah-tor
Explanation of Names
"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 2006Identification
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.
Range
Widely distributed across Canada and northern U.S.
Habitat
Generally associated with wetlands and near cattails and willows.
Season
Adults emerge from mummies in late summer and early autumn.
Food
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.
Remarks
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.
Print References
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).