Small Zebra Spider Wasp
S4, Male, dorsal
Small Zebra Spider Wasp
S1, Female, profile
Animals
Plants
Info
| Small Zebra Spider Wasp S4, Male, dorsal | | Small Zebra Spider Wasp S1, Female, profile | | ||
Animals Plants Info |
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | ||||||||||||
| Order: | Ant Bee Wasps (Hymenoptera) | |||||||||||||
| Family: | Zebra Spider Wasp (Wasp: Pompilidae: Pompilinae) iNaturalist Observation | |||||||||||||
| Species: | Small Zebra Spider Wasp (Ctenostegus sp)| This Photo: | 🔍S5, Male, dorsal🔎 | Thank you Dr Paul Whitington for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere Females & Males are similar size, ~7 to ~10.5mm long (body & head), wingspan ~15mm Note the stripes are less distinct, more grey than silvery white (compared to the most Turneromyia sp). The males have quite a different abdomen shape to females, as well as proportionally thicker antennae. Females have 10 flagellomeres & males have 11 Also note the 2 sub-marginal cells on the wing venation; diagnostic for this genus. We've added a Wing Comparision composite image to show the difference. We first discovered this years ago thru this excellent image by Tony Daley, Insects of Tasmania, showing the wing venation difference between Turneromyia & Ctenostegus: Wing Venation Difference To our eyes, this looks EXACTLY the same as T. bassiana; but wing venation proves they are different genera. Paul said "Wing venation is a match to figs.2-12 in Evans, H.E. "A revision of spider wasps of the genus Ctenostegus" Aust.J.Zool. Suppl.Ser. 1976, 43: 1-107. In his paper "A revision of spider wasps of the genus Turneromyia" Aust.J.Zool. Suppl.Ser. 1984, 101: 1-59, Evans states that the distinguishing feature to the closely related pompilid species Turneromyia is the presence of 3 submarginal cells in the forewing of Turneromyia vs. 2 submarginal cells in Ctenostegus." Similar Species: Black Sand-dauber Wasp (Crabronidae sp) : Tiny Zebra Spider Wasp (Turneromyia bassiana)
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