The golden wasps fascinate with their magnificent metallic shine and their red, green or violet colouring. They are among the most beautiful insects and are not inappropriately called the hummingbirds among insects. All golden wasps are parasites that lay their eggs in the brood cells of wild bees, digger wasps and solitary wrinkled wasps. This book provides detailed information on the biology, distribution and habitats of all Central European golden wasp species in extensive profiles and brilliant photos for the first time. It presents the ingenious relationships to their hosts and enables the identification down to group level by means of a key and colour plates. Heinz Wiesbauer is a landscape ecologist and has worked intensively with hymenoptera (especially wild bees and digger wasps). Paolo Rosa is a specialist in golden wasps and has described many new species and two new genera. Herbert Zettel curates the Hemiptera Collection at the Natural History Museum Vienna.
