Ichneumonidae

The Ichneumonidae, also known as ichneumon wasps, ichneumonid wasps, ichneumonids, or Darwin wasps, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 25,000 species described as of 2016. However, this likely represents less than a quarter of their true richness as reliable estimates are lacking, along with much of the most basic knowledge about their ecology, distribution, and evolution. It is estimated that there are more species in this family than there are species of birds and mammals combined. Ichneumonid wasps, with very few exceptions, attack the immature stages of holometabolous insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts. They play an important role as regulators of insect populations, both in natural and semi-natural systems, making them promising agents for biological control.

Ichneumonidae

Uncredited · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
ichneumon waspPBDB
Sits inside
IchneumonoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 124 million years on record.

The record covers at least 125.77 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 132.6 Mya to 129 ka.

Early Cretaceous — about 52 of 473 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 38 of 473 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 2 of 473 occurrencesEocene — about 259 of 473 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 48 of 473 occurrencesMiocene — about 41 of 473 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 6 of 473 occurrencesPleistocene — about 27 of 473 occurrences135–131 Mya — about 2 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 4 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 15 occurrences122–117 Mya — about 16 occurrences117–113 Mya — about 15 occurrences108–104 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences104–99 Mya — about 3 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 9 occurrences95–90 Mya — about 3 occurrences90–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–81 Mya — about 7 occurrences81–77 Mya — about 8 occurrences77–72 Mya — about 8 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences63–59 Mya — about 2 occurrences59–54 Mya — about 12 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 33 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 25 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 7 occurrences41–36 Mya — about 68 occurrences36–32 Mya — about 119 occurrences32–27 Mya — about 8 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 36 occurrences23–18 Mya — about 14 occurrences18–14 Mya — about 14 occurrences14–9.0 Mya — about 10 occurrences9.0–4.5 Mya — about 3 occurrences4.5–0 Mya — about 33 occurrences125.77 Mya774 ka135 Mya0 Mya

473 occurrences of Ichneumonidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

473 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

53 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WFur — 56.92°N, 8.92°EFur — 56.57°N, 9.00°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.82°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.72°EFur — 56.83°N, 9.00°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WMiyajima — 36.98°N, 139.82°EOla — 60.17°N, 150.49°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EGreen River — 39.94°N, 108.20°WGreen River — 39.98°N, 109.11°WGreen River — 39.35°N, 108.20°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WGreen River — 39.63°N, 108.15°WGreen River — 39.53°N, 107.95°WGreen River — 39.51°N, 108.03°WGreen River — 39.54°N, 108.12°WShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EZaza — 53.17°N, 111.77°EZaza — 53.20°N, 112.82°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°EØlst — 56.84°N, 9.00°EØlst — 56.57°N, 9.00°EKap København — 82.47°N, 23.66°WKap København — 82.45°N, 24.10°WKap København — 82.32°N, 23.85°WDabeigou — 41.67°N, 116.39°ELatah — 47.65°N, 117.44°WLatah — 46.53°N, 116.79°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ESalt — 47.69°N, 7.53°EForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WMasaragawa — 38.25°N, 138.41°EAustralian Creek — 52.97°N, 122.50°WCampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EDolgan — 70.17°N, 86.82°E

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The named rock units Ichneumonidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 29 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 119 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ichneumonidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Ichneumonidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

5,770 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 172 sites for Ichneumonidae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

124 references

Each of the 473 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 112 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ichneumonidae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Ichneumonidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itIchneumonoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802