Projects completed:

Projects for publication (in no particular order of work or expected completion):

Evaniids of the Rio Napo

Peter Hibbs ran a malaise trap at Sacha Lodge (Rio Napo, Sucumbios, ECUADOR) for a year (1994), and separated more than a thousand specimens of Evaniidae in at least 40 species in the genera Evaniella, Evaniscus, Semaeomyia, Hyptia, Decevania, and Nanevania. Only two species are listed in the literature for Ecuador: there's a lot of alpha taxonomy to be done here. This collection strongly illustrates the mimicry described below. The Evaniscus series shows two color phases in the same sex for the one species at the site.

Evaniids of Hispanola.

Two Hyptia are described in the literature, but there are at least 10 available in collections, along with Semaeomyia and Evaniella.

Revision of Neotropical Evania.

There are 4 to 6 species of true Evania endemic to Central America, easily distinguished by Townes' characterization. Everything else in the Neotropics with full venation is really Evaniella or E. appendigaster. These endemics closely resemble some Ethiopian Evania.

Evaniids of Trinidad and Tobago

A minimum of 7 species resembling the Venezuelan mainland species, as opposed to the rest of the Carribean fauna. Types are located for almost all required species. Large numbers of specimens are available at the BMNH and FSUG collections.

Revision of Evaniscus.

I've only seen 3 species that belong in Evaniscus, and suspect that's all there might be. The Australian species listed in catalogs is not Evaniscus.

Evaniids of Costa Rica.

At least two dozen new species to describe.

Planevania, a new subgenus of Evaniella.

This is a distinctive set of species (from Amazonian SA) with very flattened heads and a few other synapomorphies.

The great puzzle of the sister group of the Evaniidae.

Evaniidae have been placed with the Aulacidae (including Gasteruptiidae) mostly on the basis of the high mounted gaster, which has evolved many times in many diverse lineages, and is likely sympleisiomorphic. Other characters need to be found, such as the sexually dimorphic antennae (a character shared with some Proctotrupoidea, such as Diapriidae). Another possible character is the telescoping abdomen of some Zeuxevania. While they may not be a basal group, this might be a reversion to an ancestral state.

Location of the types of the Evaniidae.

Types of about 200 of the 450 described species of Evaniidae have been located, and the locations of many others are suspected, but require some more letter writing.

Examination and sorting of world specimens of Evaniidae.

Roughly 30,000 unidentified specimens from 20 institutions have been sorted to genus, with records retained for institution, genus, and nation. This is an ongoing project.

Online catalog of the Evaniidae.

Much of the information from Hedicke's catalog and later papers is entered but it will need to be converted to whatever database is ultimately selected. The catalog is expected ultimately to be tied to specimen data.

Evaniidae lacking jugual lobes.

Anevania, new subgenus of Prosevania (Old World) lacking jugual lobe and Nanevania, new subgenus of Evaniella (New World) also lacking jugual lobe. Subgenus or species group yet to be decided.

Find subtaxa in the largest genera to simplify identification.

Evaniella, Semaeomyia, Hyptia, Prosevania, and Parevania have perhaps a hundred species or more each.

Keys allowing identification of new world Evaniids to species.

A vast amount of alpha taxonomy needs to be done.

Make sense of New Caledonian species.

The species from New Caledonia may represent a new genus of unknown affiliation: they have some interesting synapomorphies.

Make sense of the African genera.

The primary task here is delimiting Prosevania meaningfully. The full venation species that don't fall neatly into Prosevania (or Parevania) are a puzzle, and there are A LOT of them in Africa and Madagascar. I'm guessing at least 4 new genera in Madagascar, and 2 to 5 in Africa.

Find a genus for Prosevania fuscipes (=punctata).

My concept of Prosevania is currently "mesopleural depression along dorsal posterior margin, face striate." Only a few species outside of the Ethiopean region violate this and belong in Prosevania. P. fuscipes does not have the correct sort of depression.

A new subgenus of Zeuxevania.

Some Zeuxevania have females which do NOT have flattened, circular or triangular abdomens: instead the abdomen is tubular and telescoping. The hind coxae are separated by a broad groove that the long, arched petiole can fold into. This morphology VERY CLOSELY parallels Euphorine Braconidae which oviposit forwards into rapidly motile prey. ***SPECULATION ALERT*** My guess is that these Zeuxevania also oviposit forwards, onto egg cases carried by their hosts. An even weirder possibility involves some roaches which are viviparous: they extrude the egg case and then withdraw it inside. They might "give birth" to the Evaniid, or even be consumed by it. I've seen these Zeuxevania from Africa and Malaysia.

Mimicry in Evaniidae.

Evaniids in many parts of the world (especially the New World) seem to belong to a number of mimicry complexes. For example, at one site in Ecuador, you might find 3 color patterns (and associated sizes) represented in 3 species each of Evaniella, Semaeomyia, and Hyptia (and one species of Evaniscus.) Examination of malaise samples will be needed to identify possible models and fellow mimics in what (according to Townes) are probably very large mimicry complexes. North American species may well be mimicking Campanotus (carpenter ants): it would be interesting to correlate colors and sizes of Campanotus with Evaniidae. Some Hispanola Hyptia species seem to be mimicking Mutillidae. A number of Neotropical species seem to mimic Eumenidae or Polistidae. There might well be a lot of other models. There might also be character displacement.

Basic observations on the study of Evaniidae:

Extensive sexual dimorphism.

Coloration, setation, antennal segment length, and sculpture can be quite different between the sexes. This will necessitate separate keying for males and females of many species. Fortunately, it is simple to sex Evaniidae by their (as yet unpublished) antennal characters. Presumably, much of the dimorphism is due to differing behavior, ie. females spending much time walking and searching for hosts conspicuously, while males may be less conspicuous in their search for females.

Convergence of appearance (color, setation, size) among mimics.

I've seen paratype series that contain specimens from more than one genus with distinctly different venation. Sculptural characters of the head, thorax, and petiole abound.

Bad generic descriptions.

The genera of Bradley and Kieffer are for the most part not very well founded. Many of Bradley's characters don't work for me, and Kieffer overemphasized wing venation for establishment of genera. Townes made a few excellent observations to distinguish some of the genera. Deans & Huben have finally set this right for 99% of specimens.

The keys are almost all worthless for identification.

Unless a specimen is a really distinctive species, it is unlikely that it can be keyed (or that it could be distinguished from the many similar and unpublished species.) The only keys that I consider pretty reliable are Townes (the Nearctic and Pacific island species), and perhaps the keys to the European species. No other keys cover more than a fraction of the species present at any locality.

There is no reliable distribution data.

Because there are no reliable identifications available. Even Townes doesn't have reliable data because of the problem of similar species. For example, Townes thought (personal communication) that there might actually be many Hyptia species confused in the Eastern US, instead of the few he recognized. This seems true of Hyptia oblonga, which has many disjunct and morphologically distinct populations.

Work based on too few specimens.

Most prior work was based on a few individuals and didn't note the variation or even associate the sexes. There is a vast number of specimens available now. The increased use of Malaise traps has provided a wealth of specimens available in museum collections. The two biggest collections are the AEIG (Townes, Gainesville) collection with more than 18,000 specimens from all continents and the BMNH (British Museum) collection with at least 8,000 specimens. There are quite a few other collections with 1000+ specimens.

Inadequate illustration and description.

The vast majority of species will need to be distinguished by the rich suites of sculptural characters which are best illustrated by SEM photomicrographs. Evaniidae tend to be rather spherical and don't photograph well otherwise. New terminology will be needed to describe regions and individual features of sculpture.

Who's working on Evaniidae.

Michael Elliott, based at the Australian Museum, has just started (2000) investigating the Australian Evaniidae. His intial focus will be the description of a small number of specimens from a genus [probably Brachygaster] limited in Australia to North Queensland, and the production of a preliminary key to the described genera in Australia.