Brief Summary
provided by Catalog of Hymenoptera in America North of Mexico
Included in this superfamily are several groups with quite diverse habits. The primitive family Masaridae includes the only solitary wasps which store pollen and nectar as food for their larvae rather than paralyzed or dismembered Arthropoda. The solitary eumenid wasps store paralyzed lepidopterous or coleopterous, or rarely hymenopterous, larvae as food for their young. All of the truly social wasps belong to the family Vespidae.
- bibliographic citation
- Catalog of Hymenoptera in America North of Mexico. 1979. Prepared cooperatively by specialists on the various groups of Hymenoptera under the direction of Karl V. Krombein and Paul D. Hurd, Jr., Smithsonian Institution, and David R. Smith and B. D. Burks, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, Insect Identification and Beneficial Insect Introduction Institute. Science and Education Administration, United States Department of Agriculture.
