Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
J Insect Sci. 2010;10:160. doi: 10.1673/031.010.14120.
In morphology, coloration, and size, Pseudabispa wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae) closely resemble mason wasps in the genus Abispa, and their distributions overlap. Although these two genera are among the largest solitary wasps in Australia, the biology of Pseudabispa was not previously known. Field observations from near Katherine, Northern Territory, strongly suggest that P. paragioides (Meade-Waldo) females attack and kill female A. ephippium (Fabricius) and usurp their nests, then appropriate cells, mass provision them with caterpillars acquired by theft from still other nests, and close them with mud taken from the host nest. Despite an abundance of potentially available cells in nests of three other large solitary wasps common at the same site, P. paragioides was found associated only with nests of A. ephippium. This unusual report of apparently forcible and lethal interspecific nest takeover for a non-social wasp parallels behaviors previously known only from socially parasitic eusocial Hymenoptera. Exploitation by P. paragioides may help explain why its host displays some of the most highly developed parental care known in any solitary eumenid, and why its nests are spaced widely from one another.
在形态、颜色和大小方面，拟黄柄泥蜂（膜翅目：胡蜂科：泥蜂亚科）与黄柄泥蜂属（Abispa）的泥蜂非常相似，它们的分布区域重叠。尽管这两个属是澳大利亚最大的独居胡蜂之一，但此前人们并不了解拟黄柄泥蜂的生物学特性。在北领地凯瑟琳地区附近进行的实地观察强烈表明，雌性拟黄柄泥蜂会攻击并杀死雌性黄柄泥蜂（Fabricius），并侵占它们的巢穴，然后用从其他巢穴偷来的毛毛虫来填充巢穴，并将其用从宿主巢穴中取出的泥土封闭。尽管在同一地点常见的另外三种大型独居泥蜂的巢穴中有大量潜在可用的巢穴，但只发现拟黄柄泥蜂与黄柄泥蜂的巢穴有关。这种非社会性胡蜂明显的强制性和致命的种间巢穴接管的异常报告与以前只从社会性寄生膜翅目社会性昆虫中了解到的行为相似。拟黄柄泥蜂的这种利用行为可能有助于解释为什么其宿主表现出在任何独居胡蜂中已知的最发达的亲代养育行为，以及为什么其巢穴彼此之间的间隔很远。
