LIBRARY

682
COLLEGE ENTOMOLOGY
of tropical and subtropical America store honey in repletes. These and other
honey ants are eagerly gathered by primitive man as a source of sweets.
The robber ant, Polyergus rufescens Latr., 6-10 mm., is an obligatory slave
maker, and the workers of various species of Formica are essential to make its
nests and to rear and feed its young. This European species is represented in
North America by three subspecies often referred to as Amazon ants in this
country. Among the most remarkable of all ants are the red and green tree
ants belonging to the genus (Ecophylla F. Smith which have red, greenish, and
black-colored forms that build large nests in trees by sewing the leaves together
by the manipulation of web-spinning larvre as shuttles. The workers
are vicious biters and commonly attend aphids, other honeydew-producing
homopterous insects, and the caterpillars of lycrenid butterflies. The green
tree ant, O. virescens Fab., inhabits tropical Africa, Papua, and Queensland,
while the red tree ant, O. smaragdina Fab., occurs in India.
X. Superfamily CHRYSIDOIDEA Rohwer 1916
87. Family CHRYSIDIDJE (Latreille 1802) Dahlbom 1864 (Chry-sid'i.dre,
from the Greek XPUr160S, golden; referring to the brilliant metallic colors
of these wasps). German, Goldwespen. French, Chrysides. Gold Wasps,
Ruby Wasps, Cuckoo Wasps.
Small to medium-sized, 2-18 mm., slender or stout, brilliant metallic green,
red, blue, purple, and other reflections; smooth or coarsely punctured or sculp.
tured; some species when disturbed curl into a rigid position. Head as wide as
thorax. Eyes widely separated. Ocelli in a triangle on the vertex. Antennre
setiform, short. Thorax large; scutellum may extend beyond base of abdomen.
Legs slender; claws bifid and
with two to six teeth. Wing
venation reduced, hind pair
of wings with small oval lobe.
Abdomen sessile, with two
to five (usually three and
FIG. 240. Edward's cuckoo wasp, Parnopes edwardsij Cresson. Right, adult curled in deathfeigning
attitude. (From Insects of Western North America.)
rarely five) dorsal segments visible; venter concave; propodeum with sharp
lateral keels or spines; last tergite with apical margins entire, notched, or
toothed; ovipositor tubiliferous and r6tractile. The adults are known as
cuckoo wasps from the habit of the females of laying their eggs in the pro-