The Cynipoidea are a moderate-sized hymenopteran superfamily that presently includes seven extant families and three extinct families, though others have been recognized in the past. The most familiar members of the group are phytophagous, especially as gall-formers, though the actual majority of included species are parasitoids or hyperparasitoids. They are typically glossy, dark, smooth wasps with somewhat compressed bodies and somewhat reduced wing venation. It is common for various metasomal segments to be fused in various ways, and the petiole is very short, when present.
Cynipoidea
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation.
A parasitoid wasp (Trioxys complanatus, Aphidiinae) ovipositing into the body of a spotted alfalfa aphid (Therioaphis maculata, Calaphidinae), a behaviour that is used in biological pest control
A hyperparasitoid chalcidoid wasp on the cocoons of its host, a braconid wasp, itself a koinobiont parasitoid of Lepidoptera
Potter wasp, an idiobiont, building a mud nest; she will provision it with paralysed insects, on which she will lay her eggs; she will then seal the nest and provide no further care for her young
The head of a sessile female strepsipteran protruding (lower right) from the abdomen of its wasp host; the male (not shown) has wings
