Parasitoid wasp
The term parasitoid wasp refers to a large evolutionary grade of hymenopteran superfamilies, mainly in the Apocrita. The parasitic or parasitoidal Apocrita are divided into some dozens of families. They are parasitoids of various animals, mainly other arthropods. Many of them are considered beneficial to humans because they control populations of agricultural pests. Others are unwelcome because they are hyperparasitoids, attacking beneficial parasitoids.
Description
Parasitoidal wasps range from some of the smallest species of insects, to wasps about an inch long. Some are parasitoids that complete their metamorphosis in a single small egg of a small insect, and such a wasp is necessarily less than 1 mm long. Most females have a ‘spine-like’ ovipositor at the tip of the abdomen (Drees and Jackman). The egg and larval stage are usually not observed unless dissected from the host in which the adult female parasitized, except in species that practically fill the skin of the host with parasitoid larvae.
