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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Voi.. XXVII, 1920 
gonatopus americanus. 7. Gonatcpus erythrodes. (Fig. 1 from Perkins, Figs. 2-5 
from Kieflfer.) 
also lost the wings in a great many cases and the body has become 
ant-like. On the other hand, the males throughout the whole 
group are more primitive in structure and do not show the special - 
ization that has taken place in the females. 
Recent writers have placed the Anteoninae in Ashmead’s super- 
family Vespoidea because of the habit the females have of stinging 
and paralyzing the host before ovipositing. Since this is not true, 
at least in certain species of Aphelopus which is. now considered the 
most generalized genus of the group, this fact should be recon- 
sidered. If we assume that the paralyzing habit was developed 
later on in the phylogeny of the group, as the above fact seems 
to indicate, it appears that this subfamily and therefore the 
Bethylidae, should be removed from the Vespoidea. Probably 
the theory advanced by Perkins ^ that “they constitute a natural 
group, synthetic between the old Fossoreal series of the Aculeata 
and the true Serphoidea (Proctotrupoidea)” is more correct and 
that for the present they should be included in the latter super- 
family. 
Fortunately, owing to the rather large number of host records 
on hand and the smallness of the entire group, we are able to get 
a series of adults which illustrates nicely the evolution of the 
extreme specialized types from the most primitive species. Even 
here, however, there is some divergence of opinion as to the exact 
relationship of the different genera to each other. 
2 Perkins, R. C. R., Report of work of the Experiment Station of the Hawaiian 
Sugar Planters’ Association: Bull. 1, part 1, 1905, page 27. 
