Pleistodontes

Pleistodontes
Pleistodontes sp. female
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Agaonidae
Subfamily: Agaoninae
Genus: Pleistodontes
Saunders 1882
Type species
Pleistodontes imperialis
Saunders, 1882

Pleistodontes is a genus of fig wasps native to Australia and New Guinea, with one species (P. claviger) from Java. Fig wasps have an obligate mutualism with the fig species they pollinate. Pleistodontes pollinates species in section Malvanthera of the Ficus subgenus Urostigma.

In their revision of the Australian members of the genus, Carlos Lopez-Vaamonde and coauthors expressed the opinion that P. claviger did not belong in the genus.[1]

  1. ^ Lopez-Vaamonde, Carlos; Dixon, Dale J.; Cook, James M.; Rasplus, Jean-Yves (2002). "Revision of the Australian species of Pleistodontes (Hymenoptera: Agaonidae) fig-pollinating wasps and their host-plant associations". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 136 (4): 637–83. doi:10.1046/j.1096-3642.2002.00040.x. Archived from the original on 2011-08-13.