Tachinidae Robineau-Desvoidy 1830

Annotated catalog of vespid hosts of Tachinidae

At least 15 species of Tachinidae in six genera, four in Anacamptomyiini and two in Blondeliini, are currently recorded as parasitoids of at least 47 eusocial species of Vespidae in the subfamilies Polistinae, Stenogastrinae and Vespinae (Table 1). Records were found in all biogeographical regions, except the Nearctic Region. Only one tachinid larva was reared per host, found at the bottom of the comb cell.

Tachinids were also recorded in Eumeninae, but these records must be treated carefully. Most eumenine wasps are mass provisioners, i.e., adults provide their nests with high amounts of prey, usually immature of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera (Carpenter and Cumming 1985). The parasitism, therefore, may not have occurred in the wasp larva, but in a preyed specimen that was already parasitized when captured. For instance, tachinids were recorded in preys of Abispa Mitchell in Australia (Matthews and Matthews 2004), Katamenes Meade-Waldo in Ukraine (Fateryga and Ivanov 2009), Odynerus Latreille in Russia (Fateryga 2013), Rhynchium Spinola in India, Thailand and Vietnam (Iwata 1964; Dang and Nguyen 2019; Udayakumar et al. 2022), and Symmorphus Wesmael in Japan (Hamanishi 1996). The following records of parasitism in Eumeninae by tachinids are therefore probably unreliable: Alastor Lepeletier in Ukraine (Fateryga and Podunay 2018), Brachymenes Giordani Soika in Brazil (Camillo 1999), Delta Saussure in Malaysia (Crosskey 1976, as Eumenes campaniformis (Fabr.)), and Monobia Saussure in Brazil (Camillo et al. 1997; Oliveira and Gonçalves 2017).

Records of parasitism by unidentified dipterous flies were also not included in the catalog, as the larvae of some species of Phoridae and Sarcophagidae are parasitoids or kleptoparasites in nests of Vespidae (Nelson 1968; Makino 1985; Lutz and Brown 2013). The following records are therefore pending review: Agelaia lobipleura melanogaster (Richards) in Peru (Richards 1978a), A. yepocapa (Richards) in Costa Rica (Hunt et al. 2001), Belonogaster discifera Hensen and Blommers in Africa (Wenzel 1991), Liostenogaster tutua Turillazzi in Malaysia (Turillazzi 1999), Mischocyttarus (Haplometrobius) surinamensis occidentalis Richards and Polistes (Epicnemius) pacificus Fabr. in Trinidad and Tobago (Vesey-FitzGerald 1938), Polybia (Myrapetra) erythrothorax Richards and P. (M.) platycephala sylvestris Richards in Brazil (Richards 1978a), P. (M.) ruficeps ruficeps Schrottky, locality not given (Richards 1978a), Ropalidia kurandae Richards and R. turneri Richards in Australia (Richards 1978b), and R. tomentosa (Gerstaecker) in Tanzania (Vesey-FitzGerald 1940).

The classifications of Vespidae and Tachinidae used in the Australasian, Neotropical and Oriental catalogs are out of date, whereas the records presented in the Palaearctic catalog were recently reviewed: Tschorsnig (2017) lists five species of Polistes Latreille and two species of Vespa L. for the anacamptomyiine Euvespivora decipiens (Walker) in Japan (Table 1). The reader is referred to Tschorsnig (2017) to check further details regarding localities, references and notes about these records. An updated and annotated host catalog of Afrotropical, Australasian, Neotropical and Oriental vespid hosts of Tachinidae is provided below.