Rotoitidae is a very small family of rare, relict

Relict

A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon.* In biology a relict is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas....

ual parasitic wasp

Parasitic wasp

The term parasitoid wasp refers to a large evolutionary grade of hymenopteran superfamilies, mainly in the Apocrita. They are primarily parasitoids of other animals, mostly other arthropods...

s in the superfamily Chalcidoidea. There are only two species known, each in their own genus, one from New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and one from Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

. They are the most recently-discovered family of chalcidoids (even though, ironically, they may be the most ancient lineage), and nothing is known about their biology. Females of the Chilean species, Chiloe micropteron, have their wings reduced to tiny bristles.

Features of their anatomy, including very "primitive" wing venation, have led researchers to believe that rotoitids may be very close to the base of the chalcidoid family tree, close to the Mymaridae.

External links

• Universal Chalcidoid Database