Ichneumonidae of South Africa

This gallery aims to show some of the variation in the Ichneumonidae (a family of parasitic wasps) of South Africa. Photographs are of live wasps, and were taken in South Africa.

"The Ichneumonidae is one of the most species rich families of all organisms with an estimated 60 000 species in the world (Townes 1969). Even so, many authorities regard this figure as an underestimate (Gauld 1991). An estimated 12 100 species of Ichneumonidae occur in the Afrotropical region (Africa south of the Sahara and including Madagascar and surrounding islands) (Townes & Townes 1973), of which only 2097 species have been described in the 360 genera in 26 subfamilies recorded from the Afrotropical region (Yu et al 2011). This means that only 17% of the Afrotropical ichneumonids are known to science!" (van Noort, S. 2021. WaspWeb: Hymenoptera of the Afrotropical region www.waspweb.org accessed on 1 November 2021).