Description of the Family Argidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera)

Abstract

Sawflies, horntails, and wood wasps Argidae sawflies Argidae occur in all tropical, temperate, and subarctic regions of the world. Even though worldwide in distribution, the fauna of the Neotropical Region is the most diverse. Representatives of all subfamilies, except the Australian Zenarginae, occur in the neotropics. In the number of genera (32) and numbers of species (over 350), the Neotropical fauna includes more than twice the number of genera and nearly half the species as the rest of the world’s regions. Adults of Argidae some species can be found on various types of flowers, especially the larger species belonging to the Arginae subfamily. In this case, the eggs are laid in groups on the surface of a leaf, and the female takes care of the eggs and young larvae. The larvae feed in groups, presenting defined feeding patterns, and, when they complete their development, weave cocoons in groups protected by a common cover. The purpose of the manuscript is to describe the Biology, Ecology, behavior, damage, and taxonomy of the family Argidae (Insecta, Hymenoptera, Symphita). The articles were published from 1979 to 2023 in indexed scientific research, book scientific chapters, theses banks, university dissertations, national and international scientific articles, scientific journals, documents, and even in general journals when considered of interest and digital platforms: Universidade de São Paulo, Scielo Universidade de Brasilia, WaspWeb, Biological Abstract, and ResearchGate. The main terms used were: Hymenoptera, Symphyta, Woodwasps, Horntails, Sawflies, and Tenthredinoidea. In summary, basically, the following steps of analysis were covered: · Exhaustive reading of each article aiming at a global understanding and discovery of the approach used by its authors; · Identification of the central ideas of each article; · Classification of ideas around nuclei of meaning; · Comparison between the different nuclei of meaning present in the studied articles; · Classification of the nuclei of meaning in broader axes (themes) around which the authors' discussions revolved and Writing of the interpretative syntheses of the theme.