1966] 
Evans — Female Plumarius 
237 
I would go so far as to ask if (assuming the superfamily is a useful 
category in other Hymenoptera) all Aculeata ought not to be placed 
in a single superfamily. 
Finally, a word should be said about Plumarius as a possible 
progenitor of the ants. Brown and Nutting (1950) point out that 
the venation of the male is in some ways antlike, although they re- 
mark that in general the male is “not a very promising candidate 
for ant ancestry”. This remark seems even more applicable to the 
female, which has a very broad, smooth junction between the first 
two metasomal tergites, only five segments in the maxillary palpi, 
and a variety of unantlike specializations in body form. Anthobosca, 
in the Tiphiidae, remains a much better prototype for the ants. 
References 
Bradley, J. C. 
1921a. Some features of the hymenopterous fauna of South America. 
Actes Soc. Sci. Chili, 30: 51-74. 
1921b. Plumarius, an aberrant genus of Hymenoptera. Proc. Wash. 
Acad. Sci., 11: 214. 
Brown, W. L. Jr., and W. L. Nutting 
1950. Wing venation and the phylogeny of the Formicidae (Hymen- 
optera). Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc., 75: 113-132. 
Evans, H. E. 
1963. A new family of wasps. Psyche, 70: 7-16. 
Sharov, A. G. 
1957. First discovery of a Cretaceous stinging Hymenoptera (Acu- 
leata). Doklady Academia Nauk, USSR, 112: 943-944. 
Snodgrass, R. E. 
1941. The male genitalia of Hymenoptera. Smithsonian Misc. Coll., 
99 (4) : 1-86, 33 pis. 
