I have extracted a few evanoid-like braconids from the recent French Guianan batch and amongst the Cenocoeliinae I found a few of these, which I didn’t think was related but Yves Braet (an expert on French Guianan braconids) suggested Foenomorpha and after a bit of Googling I found a key (by Yves) that suggests that this is Foenomorpha senlura – it feels amazing to get a species-level identification for a neotropical wasp 
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Here is another little distraction from my normal interests in the form of a French Guianan ichneumon called Apechoneura of the subfamily Labeninae. Many thanks to Gavin Broad of the NHM for the identification. I had initially thought that it was a rhyssine because it has a wonderfully ridged thorax but this is also a feature of Apechoneura.
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Amongst the evanoid wasps I have found quite a few of these little wasps. At first I thought that they must be evanoids because the gaster is mounted very high on the propodeum but on closer inspection they have fused costal veins and so they actually key (in Goulet & Huber, 1993) to Braconidae. Then in the key to braconid subfamilies (Acterberg, 1993) they go to an unusual little family called Cenocoeliinae. Of course, they aren’t true mimics but they have evolved a similar arrangement of gaster & propodeum to the evanoids.
- Achterberg, C. van, 1993. Illustrated key to the subfamilies of the Braconidae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea.― Zoologische Verhandelingen Leiden 283: 1-189, figs 1-66, photos 1-140, plates 1-102.
- Goulet, H. and Huber, J.T. (eds). 1993. Hymenoptera of the world: an identification guide to families. Agriculture Canada Research Branch, Monograph No. 1894E. 668 pp.
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Continuing the Hymenoptera theme I have been picking out anything that looks a bit like an evanoid wasp and came across these lovely stephanoids. The Stephanoidea (the only family being Stephanidae) are quite distinctive because they have very round heads with a crown of little thorns around a median ocellus – coupled with the fact that they are very elongate and have 2 distinct costal veins, like their cousins the Evanoidea.
Kees van Achterberg kindly sent me his key to the genera of Stephanidae and it runs to a Hemistephanus sp. and in the revisions of this genus (Aguiar, 1998 & 2004) kindly emailed to me by Alexandre Aguiar it keys to H.erugatus. If this is correct it will be a new country record for this species.
- Achterberg, C, van 2002. A revision of the Old World species of Megischus Brullé, Stephanus Jurine and Pseudomegischus gen. nov., with a key to the genera of the family Stephanidae (Hymenoptera: Stephanoidea). Zoologische Verhandelingen 339:1–206.
- Aguiar, A.P. 1998. Revisão do gênero Hemistephanus Enderlein, 1906 (Hymenoptera: Stephanidae), com considerações metodológicas. Revista Brasileira de Entomologia, 41(2-4):343-429.
- Aguiar, A.P. 2004. Additions to the revision of the genus Hemistephanus Enderlein (Hymenoptera: Stephanidae), with inclusion of four taxa and description of two new species. Pap. Avulsos Zool. (São Paulo) [online]. vol.44, n.2, pp. 13-43
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I know it must seem like I have gone over to the dark-side but Hymenoptera aren’t all bad … Jean sent me a few tubes of wasps in his recent batch and it didn’t take long before I found some really exquisite insects – like this one. Normal chalcids are tiny little things but this one is 15mm from head to tail … yup, I said 15mm!! With colours like a ruby-tail wasp it is absolutely incredible – have a look:
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