Overview
The family has a southern hemisphere distribution and, until recently, its biology was only inferred from collecting records that indicated species may be gregarious
ectoparasitoids
of wood-boring beetle larvae. However, this has now been confirmed for one species from Brazil.
Description
They are 4 8 mm in length, and can be recognised by the antennae inserted low on the face just above the mouth; the pronotum elongate and neck-like; the prosternum (ventral part of the 1st segment of the mesosoma) visible and diamond-shaped; and both sexes fully winged with the distal venation in the fore wing missing, a pterostigma present, and the hind wing lacking any closed cells.
Distribution
This small, very rarely collected family is known from the genera
Clystopsenella
and
Ycaploca
and only two species from Australia, and an undetermined species of
Ycaploca
from New Zealand.
Further information about the Scolebythidae can be found in Azevedo 1999, Finnamore & Brothers 1993, Gauld & Hanson 1995, Melo 2000 and nagy 1975.