Overview
This family is endemic to Australia and is probably the rarest group of Hymenoptera in that it is known from a single species,
Austrocynips mirabilis
, and only three specimens. It can be recognised by having a pterostigma in the radial cell of the fore wing, the only member of the Cynipoidea to have this character, and the posterior margin of the pronotum protruding over the anterior margin of the mesopleuron rather than these two sclerites abutting each other. Initially described as a subfamily of Cynipidae, it was raised to family rank after Ronquist (1995) showed it to be phylogenetically basal to all other extant members of the superfamily.
Austrocynips mirabilis
was reared as a parasitoid from an unknown oecophorid moth (Lepidoptera) in the cone of
Araucaria
belonging to the archaic conifer family Araucariaceae.
Further information about the Austrocynipidae can be found in Richie 1993, Ronquist 1995 and Ronquist 1999.