Overview
No host records are available for any Australasian species, apart from
S. cinctipes
, but elsewhere in the world stephanids are
ectoparasitoids
mostly of wood-boring coleopteran larvae and, much more rarely, sawflies and solitary
bees. A
lthough the phylogenetic evidence is not conclusive, stephanids are postulated to be among the most primitive of living parasitic wasps.
Description
Stephanidae are a relatively easy family to recognise based on the tooth-like tubercles on the vertex (top) of the head, the hind leg coxae and femur swollen and of almost equal size, the metasoma elongate and petiolate, and the ovipositor of the females extremely long. They are slender, medium to large in size (3.5 60 mm) and superficially resemble some
Gasteruptiidae and Braconidae.
Twenty-one species in three genera are recorded for Australia, and recently have been treated in detail by Aguiar (2001).
Distribution
Most species belong to the genus
Parastephanellus
, while
Schlettererius
is represented only by
S. cinctipes
, which has been introduced into Australia as a biocontrol agent for the sirex woodwasp
(Siricidae).
Stephanids are absent from New Zealand, but are known from New Caledonia.
Further information about the Stephanidae can be found in Aguiar 2001, Aguiar & Jennings 2005 and Mason 1993.