These interesting Beetles (109 NA spp) are parasitic on bees and other
insects visiting flowers. Males are winged, but the female remains
larviform, projecting her abdomen through the abdomen of the host where
visiting males find her and copulate. Eggs are deposited on flowers
where the mobile first instar larvae await another host. Some authorities
place these strange insects in a separate Order, the Strepsiptera,
but their affinity to the Coleoptera is unquestioned.
I have collected a couple of specimens of parasitized Polistes
(HYM: Vespidae) with a female Stylopid projecting from the wasp's abdomen.
