If that’s a wasp and a yellow-jacket is a wasp, then so are ants and bees,
That logic doesn’t check out, given Sapygidae is a family of sapygid wasps belonging to the Aculeata infraorder.
Aculeata is named after its defining feature, which is the modification of the ovipositor into a stinger. This trait doesn’t strictly constitute a wasp, which is why they have their own families (Vespidae, Sapygidae, Pompilidae, Myrmosidae, basically all of the Chrysidoidea superfamily, etc.).
All wasps are aculeate, but not all aculeates are wasps.
Just to confirm, you don’t think of jewel wasps, spider wasps, sand wasps, and flower wasps as wasps, since they’re not part of the Vespidae, correct?
I’ve mostly seen wasps defined as basically “Apocrita but not the ones we don’t think count as wasps because there’s too many of them, specifically bees and ants.” Which leads to the same weird reasoning that would somehow make legless lizards lizards, but not snakes. I’ve seen velvet ants referred to as wasps, but not ants, even though true ants are far closer cousins to Vespidae. That just isn’t a viable scientific definition. I’m glad we’ve mostly moved on to grouping avian dinosaurs among the dinosaurs, but it feels like a lot of similar groupings are still lagging.
I’m willing to accept Vespidae as a synonym of wasps, but that excludes a ton of wasps. It also erases the very wasp-like nature of ant ancestors, which is what makes cladistics so fascinating. So why not just open it up to include all Apocrita and be done with it?
I’m also fine with a morphological definition of wasps, like how “tree” isn’t based on ancestry but on structure, but you were the one pulling in the scientific names.
That logic doesn’t check out, given Sapygidae is a family of sapygid wasps belonging to the Aculeata infraorder.
Aculeata is named after its defining feature, which is the modification of the ovipositor into a stinger. This trait doesn’t strictly constitute a wasp, which is why they have their own families (Vespidae, Sapygidae, Pompilidae, Myrmosidae, basically all of the Chrysidoidea superfamily, etc.).
All wasps are aculeate, but not all aculeates are wasps.
Just to confirm, you don’t think of jewel wasps, spider wasps, sand wasps, and flower wasps as wasps, since they’re not part of the Vespidae, correct?
I’ve mostly seen wasps defined as basically “Apocrita but not the ones we don’t think count as wasps because there’s too many of them, specifically bees and ants.” Which leads to the same weird reasoning that would somehow make legless lizards lizards, but not snakes. I’ve seen velvet ants referred to as wasps, but not ants, even though true ants are far closer cousins to Vespidae. That just isn’t a viable scientific definition. I’m glad we’ve mostly moved on to grouping avian dinosaurs among the dinosaurs, but it feels like a lot of similar groupings are still lagging.
I’m willing to accept Vespidae as a synonym of wasps, but that excludes a ton of wasps. It also erases the very wasp-like nature of ant ancestors, which is what makes cladistics so fascinating. So why not just open it up to include all Apocrita and be done with it?
I’m also fine with a morphological definition of wasps, like how “tree” isn’t based on ancestry but on structure, but you were the one pulling in the scientific names.