Discovery of the first fossil wasp (Hymenoptera: Dryinoidea: Embolemidae) from late middle Eocene Anglesea amber, Southeastern Australia

Embolemidae (Hymenoptera: Dryinoidea) are enigmatic parasitoid wasps belonging to the infraorder of Aculeata. Traditionally, Embolemidae had been classified within the superfamily Chrysidoidea, along with the extant families Bethylidae, Chrysididae, Dryinidae, Plumariidae, Sclerogibbidae, and Scolebythidae (Carpenter, 1999). However, recent phylogenetic studies questioned the monophyly of the superfamily Chrysidoidea, resulting in separating the clade of Dryinidae, Sclerogibbidae, and Embolemidae as either the sister-lineage of Aculeata s.s. (Branstetter et al., 2017, Blaimer et al., 2023) or as an early-diverging lineage sister-group to all other aculeate families (Pauli et al., 2021). Thus, the three families, including Embolemidae, are considered as a distinct superfamily of aculeate wasps, the Dryinoidea (Lepeco & Melo, 2024; Zhang et al., 2024). Currently, the family Embolemidae consists of four genera (Embolemus Westwood, 1833 ; Ampulicomorpha Ashmead, 1893 ; Baissobius Rasnitsyn, 1975 ; Embolemopsis Olmi et al., 2010) distributed in all zoogeographical regions (Guglielmino et al., 2013). Although, this family has largely been revised (e.g., Amarante et al., 1999; Achterberg & Kats, 2000; Azevedo & Amarante, 2006; Perrichot & Engel, 2011; Olmi et al., 2020), limited knowledge exists about its present biology and its fossil record (Perkovsky & Rasnitsyn, 2013).