ABSTRACT
An egg of the parasitoid placed on the beetle larva deep in the wood of a tree trunk provides a fairly secure guarantee that the next generation of the parasitoid species will survive. Parasites usually lack life stages that live independently of the host. The adults of the aquatic species must usually seek out the host underwater in the kind of water body inhabited by insects suitable as hosts. Most of the recent taxonomic publications on parasitoid hymenopterans have included thorough anatomical descriptions of new species, thorough enough to easily distinguish the imagoes. Once a species has been determined to be aquatic and its host or hosts are known, studies of its ecological requirements, mating behavior, and search for suitable hosts can be undertaken. A complication that researchers will certainly face is that ecological requirements and life histories of the parasitoids do not follow phylogenetic patterns.
