If I am understanding the chart here correctly, bees are not a type of wasp. Bees, wasps, ants, and sawflies are all Hymenopterans, but distinct from each other.
To be specific, bees are a “Cladistically included but traditionally excluded taxa” of wasps, since they are within Apocrita.
The common-language definition of wasp is literally “A member of Apocrita … except bees (and ants)”.
It’s the same situation as saying a chicken is a dinosaur, and why the field often uses “non-avian dinosaurs” instead for clarity.
Further, the typical wasp, the yellow-jacket, is actually way closer to the bee within Apocrita. Take this wikipedia diagram from the Aculeta article:
ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If I am understanding the chart here correctly, bees are not a type of wasp. Bees, wasps, ants, and sawflies are all Hymenopterans, but distinct from each other.
Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
That graph Does contain bees.
Image
To be specific, bees are a “Cladistically included but traditionally excluded taxa” of wasps, since they are within Apocrita.
The common-language definition of wasp is literally “A member of Apocrita … except bees (and ants)”.
It’s the same situation as saying a chicken is a dinosaur, and why the field often uses “non-avian dinosaurs” instead for clarity.
Further, the typical wasp, the yellow-jacket, is actually way closer to the bee within Apocrita. Take this wikipedia diagram from the Aculeta article:
Image
So if you want to exclude wasps and bees at the level of Apocrita, you’d have to turn yellow-jackets into bees.