OBSERVATIONS ON THE NESTING BEHAVIOR AND 
PREY OF GORYTINE WASPS IN TRINIDAD 
(HYMENOPTERA, SPHECIDAE)* 
By E. McC. Callan 
13 Gellibrand Street, Campbell, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia 
Introduction 
The gorytine wasps comprise the tribe Gorytini of the sphecid 
subfamily Nyssoninae. They are a generalized group and all the 
higher Nyssoninae could have arisen from a gorytine ancestor 
(Bohart and Menke, 1976). Our knowledge of their ethology has 
been summarized by Evans (1966) and is based largely on studies 
in the Northern Hemisphere. Biologically these wasps are little 
known in the tropics or south temperate regions, although some 
recent observations have been made in Australia and Argentina 
(Evans and Matthews, 1971, 1973). The nests are mass-provisioned 
with Homoptera, mainly Fulgoroidea, Cicadidae, Cicadellidae, 
Cercopidae and Membracidae, and, in Australia, Eurymelidae, 
but there are few records of the prey of tropical species. 
I have found a number of Gorytini nesting in Trinidad, West 
Indies. Several species belong to the wide-ranging genus Hopli- 
soides and one to Sagenista, a closely related neotropical genus 
described by Bohart (1967). My observations provide new data 
on tropical species and confirm in large part what is known else- 
where of gorytine nesting behavior and prey preferences. 
Ecology of Nesting Sites 
Gorytine wasps nest in the ground, generally in bare, sandy 
soil and dig relatively shallow, normally multicellular nests. Much 
of Trinidad is forested or alienated for plantation crops and suita- 
ble areas for ground-nesting species are limited. All the nesting 
sites I found in Trinidad were in small exposed areas free from 
vegetation and most were in close proximity to forest. 
In the foothills of the Northern Range nesting sites were found 
in the following areas: in lower montane rain forest in the Caura 
Valley, about 5 km north of Tacarigua; at the edge of a cacao 
plantation adjacent to similar forest in the Maracas Valley, some 
* Manuscript received by the editor January 28, 1977. 
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