Crabronidae


The Crabronidae are a large paraphyletic group of wasps, including nearly all of the species formerly comprising the now-defunct superfamily Sphecoidea. It collectively includes well over 200 genera, containing well over 9000 species. Crabronids were originally a part of Sphecidae, but the latter name is now restricted to a separate family based on what was once the subfamily Sphecinae. As this change is very recent, the subfamilies of Crabronidae likely will each eventually be treated as families in their own right, as they have been treated as such by many authorities in the past.

Phylogeny

This phylogenetic tree is based on Sann et al., 2018, which used phylogenomics to demonstrate that both the bees and the Sphecidae arose from within the former Crabronidae, which is therefore paraphyletic, and which they suggested should be split into several families; the former family Heterogynaidae nests within the Bembicidae, as here defined. These findings differ in several details from studies published by two other sets of authors in 2017, though all three studies demonstrate a paraphyletic "Crabronidae." Only three of these lineages were not included within Crabronidae in the past: Ampulicidae, Sphecidae, and Anthophila.

Subgroups