Hymenoepimecis Viereck 1912
- Dataset
- Darwin wasps of the subfamily Pimplinae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) of Mexico: Polysphincta genus-group
- Rank
- GENUS
Classification
- kingdom
- Animalia
- phylum
- Arthropoda
- class
- Insecta
- order
- Hymenoptera
- family
- Ichneumonidae
- genus
- Hymenoepimecis
description
Hymenoepimecis is an exclusively Neotropical genus with 29 species occurring from tropical Mexico and the Caribbean region to southern Brazil. Two species of Hymenoepimecis are recorded from southern Mexico in this paper; this is the first record of the genus from this country. Species of Hymenoepimecis are koinobiont ectoparasitoids of sub-adult and adult spiders from the families Araneidae, Nephilidae and Tetragnathidae. The larva of the parasitoid modifies behavior of the host and induces the spider to build unique “ cocoon web ” with reduced number of radii and spirals that serves to support the parasitoid larva’s cocoon. The modified design of the cocoon web probably reduces the chances of insect interception by this web threads, and consequently the risk of web destruction by insects struggling to escape (Eberhard 2001; Sobczak et al. 2009; Gonzaga et al. 2022; Kloss et al. 2022).