New long-haired wasp species found in India

Indian researchers have discovered five new long-haired species of wasps from different parts of the country.

Veenakumari Kamalanathan, Prashanth Mohanraj and F. R. Khan of the National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources in India have named them 'adikeshavus,' which means 'first one to have long hairs' in Sanskrit.

The tribe to which the new five wasp species belong, for instance, is characterised by its exclusive preference for spider eggs.

Parallel evolution accounts for the tiny wings of these wasps which allows them to slip through the silk strands of the egg sacs which are deposited in leaf litter by the spiders.

These species have a uniform length of 1 to 2 mm as a result of their getting used to parasitising relatively medium-sized spider eggs.

Scientists have suggested that their clustering into groups was a necessity to facilitate future studies.

According to the authors, it was highly likely that this group of wasps would yield a much larger number of species of parasitoids attacking spider eggs in India.