Orussidae
| Orussidae Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| Orussus abietinus | |
| Orussus coronatus Fabricius, 1798, junior synonym of O. abietinus (Scopoli, 1763) and type species of Orussus Latreille, 1797. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Superfamily: | Orussoidea |
| Family: | Orussidae Newman, 1834 |
The Orussidae or the parasitic wood wasps represent a small family of sawflies ("Symphyta"). Currently, about 93 extant and four fossil species are known. They take a key position in phylogenetic analyses of Hymenoptera, because they form the sister taxon of the megadiverse apocritan wasps, and the common ancestor of Orussidae + Apocrita evolved parasitism for the first time in course of the evolution of the Hymenoptera. They are also the only sawflies with carnivorous larvae.