Embolemidae is a family of small solitary parasitoid wasps with around 70 species in 2 genera distributed around the world.[1] The few species whose biology is known are parasites on planthopper nymphs of the families Achilidae and Cixiidae.[2] There is debate regarding the status of the genus named Ampulicomorpha by Ashmead in 1893, generally considered now to be a junior synonym of Embolemus (e.g.,[1]), though some authorities dispute this (e.g.,[2])
Biology
Females are wingless while males have wings, and in temperate regions emerge later than the females, which overwinter as adults.[3] The wingless females have been recorded from the nests of ants and small mammal burrows,[4] or under stones in pastures and grasslands, and they appear to be ant mimics. A Palearctic species, Embolemus ruddii, has been found in association with the ant species Formica fusca and Lasius flavus, while in Japan, Embolemus walkeri was taken in a nest of another ant, from the genus Myrmica.[1] A Nearctic species, Embolemus confusus, has been reared from nymphs of a planthopper in the family Achilidae, where the host fed on fungi beneath the bark of rotting logs. The wasp larva lives in a bulging sac attached to the host nymph between the second and third segments.[1][5]