Family Myrmecolacidae - Myrmecolacidae 0

A single described species in our area:

Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas; Mexico per Kathirithamby & Taylor (2005).

South Carolina was added to this sp. range by Kathirithamby et al. (2007).

The family Myrmecolacidae exhibits an extreme form of parasitism where males develop in ants, and the females in grasshoppers, crickets and mantids. This feature, together with the fact that the sexes exhibit extreme dimorphism in Strepsiptera, means that it is impossible to match females and males morphologically. The males and females of only two species of this family have been described so far, and even these matches might be conjectural. Among the 108 Myrmecolacidae described, the ant hosts of only eight species of males are known. The rest of the species have been described from free-living males that have been caught in traps. (Kathirithamby & Johnston 2004).