Morphometric studies of Sphecid wasps of Karnataka, India

Abstract

Apoidea super-family, which includes four families: Ampulicidae, Crabronidae, Heterogynaidae, and Sphecidae. Apoid wasps are closely related to bees in terms of morphology, wherein ecologically and behaviourally they are diverse in many habitats. In the present study we carried out a PCA analysis to determine which variable contributed more with its variance to total variance observed in the apoid wasp’s morphology. First and second components with 59.55% total variation were found positively correlated with twenty-seven characters except the length of pedicle which was negatively correlated. Second component with 8.48% positively correlated with width of forewing and length of first submarginal cell and negatively correlated with length of forewing and length of metasoma. Third component with 6.55% positively correlated with length of propodeum, length of petiole and length of first metasomal segment.