Agaonidae

Female Elisabethiella comptoni

Male Elisabethiella comptoni

The family Agaonidae is a group of pollinating fig wasps. They spend their larval stage inside the fruits of figs. The pollinating wasps (Agaoninae, Kradibiinae, and Tetrapusiinae) are the mutualistic partners of the fig trees. Extinct forms from the Eocene and Miocene are nearly identical to modern forms, suggesting that the niche has been stable over geologic time.<ref name="Compton-2010"/>

Females emerge from ripe figs and fly to another fig tree with developing syconia (which contain the flowers). They enter the syconium via the ostiole, pollinate the flowers, and lay their eggs in some of the ovules. The ovules containing eggs develop into galls that support the growth of the wasp larvae. Prior to the final ripening of the fig, wingless males emerge from the galls they developed in. The males enter the galls of their winged sibling females, mate with them and die within the fruit. The newly hatched females then make their way out of the fruit continuing this cycle.<ref name="vanNoort2024">Template:Cite web</ref>

Taxonomy

The family has changed several times since its taxonomic appearance after the work of Francis Walker in 1846<ref name="Walker-1846">Template:Cite book</ref> described from the wasp genus Agaon. Previously the subfamilies Epichrysomallinae, Otitesellinae, Sycoecinae, Sycoryctinae, Sycophaginae, and Agaoninae were the subdivisions of the family.<ref name="Bouček-1988">Template:Cite book</ref> Recent works building strong molecular phylogenies with an extended sampling size have changed the composition of Agaonidae. The paraphyletic groups have been excluded; Epichrysomallinae was raised to family status (Epichrysomallidae), whereas Otitesellinae, Sycoecinae, Sycophaginae, and Sycoryctinae were transferred to Pteromalidae. New subfamilies have been instated (Kradibiinae and Tetrapusiinae).<ref name="Cruaud-etal-2010"/><ref name="Cruaudetal2011"/><ref name="Heraty-etal-2013"/><ref name=Cruaud2024/>

Ecology

The relationship between fig trees and agaonid fig wasps is an obligate mutualism that has evolved over a period of about sixty million years.<ref name="vanNoort2024b"/>

Morphological adaptations

The pollinating female fig wasps are winged and in general dark, while the males are mostly wingless and whitish. This difference of color is probably due to a clear split in the gender role. Once they have mated, male and female fig wasps have different fates. In some fig species, such as Ficus subpisocarpa or Ficus tinctoria, the males have to chew a hole for the females to leave their natal fig. The winged female wasps can fly over long distances before finding another fig to oviposit in it, while the male dies after chewing a hole. As the fig is closed by a tight ostiole, the female wasps have developed adaptations to enter. First, the mandibles of the female wasps have developed specialized mandibular appendages to help them crawl into the figs. These appendages are adapted to the host fig species, with for instance spiraled ostioles matched by spiral mandibular appendages.<ref name="van-Noort-&-Compton-1996">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Subfamilies and genera

Agaoninae

• Agaon Template:Au
• Alfonsiella Template:Au
• Allotriozoon Template:Au
• Blastophaga Template:Au
  • Blastophaga psenes Template:Au (syn. Cynips psenes Template:Au)<ref>Blastophaga psenes Linnaeus, figweb.org</ref>
• Courtella Template:Au
• Deilagaon Template:Au
• Dolichoris Template:Au
• Elisabethiella Template:Au
• Eupristina Template:Au
  • Eupristina verticillata Template:Au<ref>Eupristina verticillata Waterston, figweb.org</ref><ref>Researchers Sequence Genomes of Two Fig Species and Pollinator Wasp, sci-news; Oct. 14, 2020</ref>
• Nigeriella Template:Au
• Paragaon Template:Au
• Pegoscapus Template:Au
• Platyscapa Template:Au
• Pleistodontes Template:Au
• Waterstoniella
• Wiebesia Template:Au

Kradibiinae

• Ceratosolen Template:Au
• Kradibia Template:Au (syn. Liporrhopalum Template:Au)<ref>Kradibia Saunders Template:Webarchive, figweb.org</ref>

Tetrapusiinae

• Tetrapus

Extinct genera

• †Archaeagaon Insect Limestone, United Kingdom, Eocene (Priabonian)
  • †Archaeagaon minutum (Donisthorpe)<ref>Universal Chalcidoidea Database – Archaeagaon , Natural History Museum, London</ref>