Overview
The Australasian fauna is very poorly studied. Only two of the seven subfamilies occur in Australia and the generic classification is uniformative in that most species are placed in a single genus,
Ephutomorpha
.
Mutillids are
ectoparasitoids, and can be found on bare ground, sandy areas, tree trunks and walls where they search for nests of Sphecidae, Crabrionidae, Vespidae and Apidae
whose larvae or pupae they parasitise.
Description
Adults are generally densely pubescent (hairy), heavily sclerotised, the inner margins of the eyes are not strongly emarginate, the mid and hind coxae are close together, and the antero-lateral metasoma (T3) has felt lines (hairy grooves associated with glands). In addition, the sexes are strongly
dimorphic.
Females are wingless, lack dorsal sutures on the mesosoma (which is partly fused), often have small eyes and a powerful sting, and superficially resemble
ants,
hence their common name 'velvet ants'. Males are fully winged, lack pseudovenation (as in
Scoliidae), l
ack a lobed hind wing, and are much larger than females which they carry around attached to their genitalia before and during mating. Most members of the family are black, brown or reddish, and often have bright spots or bands of white, yellow or red. Some Australian species are metallic blue, green, bronze or purple.
Distribution
Mutillidae (called velvet ants) are small to medium-sized wasps (4 24 mm) that are most diverse in the tropics. About 250 species are described for Australia, but the fauna is probably at least twice this size. Only one introduced species occurs in New Zealand: the Australian species,
Ephutomorpha bivulnerata
, is established in the Auckland region.
Further information about the Mutillidae can be found in Brothers 1975, Brothers 1999, Brothers & Finnamore 1993, Naumann 1991 and Valentine & Walker 1983.