Stephanids are infrequently collected wasps, with a slender and richly sculptured body, a spherical head set out on a long neck, and highly specialized hind legs.
Overal size ranges from three millimiters (e.g., some males of the Australian Parastephanellus rufoornatus) to almost 10 centimeters, as in the Neotropical Megischus maculipennis.Stephanidae, Braconidae, and Ichneumonidae were frequently grouped together in Ichneumonoidea 1, 2, 3, 4, but this was shown to be incorrect 5. Stephanids are now treated in a separate superfamily 6, 7, 8, 9, although their relationships within Hymenoptera is still unclear 10, 11. Nine stephanid genera have been recognized 12, 13, but their limits and monophyly have never been clearly established.
The life history is poorly known, but some species have been reared from buprestids and cerambycids (Coleoptera). Schlettererius cinctipes attacks the pine saw fly (Siricidae) in North America. The family contains about 200 species, distributed all over the world. Species level identification is usually impossible without consultation of type material. For the USA, Townes (1945) works relatively well, but I have found two undescribed species among the material he studied. Keys to the world species in Elliott (1922) are useless.
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This page last updated: November 23, 1997.