The Wikipedia entry for the Tribe Alyssontini reads as follows: “The Alyssontini are a small tribe of small Bembicine wasps.”
And that’s it.
The lack of easily readable information about this group of Sand Wasps reinforces the vast diversity of life, that an entire group of insects with 65 known species (according to the Catalog of Sphecidae.) is so poorly known. To me, it’s exciting. What could each of those species be doing. What might their stories be? There are a few things I can say about this group, entirely gathered from the chapter about this Tribe in The Sand Wasps.
The Tribe Alyssontini are known for being adapted to cooler environments than many other Sand Wasps. Like many of the Sand Wasps, they collect Homoptera (Bug “hoppers”) of various families, mostly Cicadellidae (Leafhoppers). They make their nests in somewhat harder soil than many other Sand Wasps, and have relatively stout mandibles which they use to loosen this harder substrate for nest construction.


For my Introduction to the Sand Wasp Series of posts, go here!
References:
Evans, Howard E. and O’Neill, Kevin M. The Sand Wasps: Natural History and Behavior, 2007.
4 replies on “The Sand Wasps, Part 2: The Tribe Alyssontini”
[…] –The Sand Wasps, Part 2: The Tribe Alyssontini […]
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[…] find (have to continue the Sand Wasp series some time, I’ve only done the Introduction and one tribe!). The Sand Wasp I observed in Algonquin is possibly a member of the genus Gorytes. Species in this […]
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[…] the first article in my Sand Wasps series, the Introduction, and in January of 2021 I published Part 2: the Tribe Alyssontini. I haven’t continued the Sand Wasps series since… my initial impetus to write about […]
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[…] is one of those Sand Wasps (members of the subfamily Bembicinae) I’ve mentioned once or twice on my blog about a year ago now. The following information on this species is summarized from Evans […]
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