CYNIPOIDEA 
Four-winged hymenoptera of small to medium size, one to six millimeters in 
length ( in Ibalia only up to 20 mm.), somber in color (black, dark red, amber, 
straw-yellow or particolored), dull or shining but never with the metallic 
colors found in the chalcids. The antennae of the female usually 1J- or 14- 
segmented, never elbowed, usually filiform but in the parasitic forms several 
of the terminal segments forming a club; in the male the usual number ia 14 or 
15 with the third (rarely the fourth) often elongated and bent. The pronotum 
reaches back to the tegulae. The mesoscutum is usually separated from the 
scutellum by a suture and both are characteristically sculptured ( the notauli 
are here called the parapsidal grooves as in the descriptions of the older 
authors). The fore wings are without a true stigma and with a characteristic 
radial or marginal cell which may be open or closed on the front margin. The 
wing surface may be bare or pubescent, ciliate or non-ciliate and in some of 
the parasitic forms folds longitudinally. Tarsi are always five-segmented, the 
claws usually simple but toothed in certain genera of the gall makers. The 
first tarsal segment of the hind leg (basitarsus) is here called the metatarsus 
in the keys. Abdomen sessile or distinctly petioled in some of the parasitic 
forms where it is laterally compressed, the ovipositor issueing ventrally and 
normally concealed within the abdomen. Mature larvae are footless, not hairy, 
living as internal parasites of other insects, mainly flies or else in 
characteristic structures on plants called galls. the early stage larvae are 
often highly specialized in the parasitic forms. 
Found in all countries of the world. 
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