Nesting sites.—Holes in walls; holes in banyan and fig trees; in houses in drawers and cartons. Behavior.—Similar to that of A. assimilis. Bordage (1912) gives a complete description of capture of prey. The female wasp cuts off part of the cockroach's antennae, legs, and wings; she sticks her egg onto the host's mesothoracic coxa. The wasp frequents houses in search of prey. Five ♀♀, supplied with a cockroach per day, stored an average of 57±14 cockroaches; 8 ♀♀ stored an average of 45±3 cockroaches; these latter wasps were not supplied with a cockroach per day throughout (mean values computed from Williams, 1942). This wasp will not attack Nauphoeta cinerea (Williams, 1942a) or Pycnoscelus surinamensis (Schwabe, 1950b). On one occasion, A. compressa stung Diploptera punctata, but did not oviposit (Williams, 1942a). Development.—Minimum 34 days, maximum 140 days (Williams, 1942). About 6 weeks (Swezey, 1944). Longevity of adults.—13 ♀♀ lived an average of 110±11 days (minimum 31, maximum 159); several ♂♂ lived 2 months (Williams, 1942).
Ampulex fasciata Jurine
Natural host.—Ectobius pallidus, France (Picard, 1911, 1919): Nesting sites are in brier or bramble stems, or in crevices in fig trees; the female possibly uses old nests of leaf-cutter bees. The feeding of the wasp larva is similar to that of other Ampulex. Adult wasp emerges by cutting open a passage through its cocoon and through the anus of the cockroach.
Ampulex ruficornis (Cameron)
Natural hosts.—Cockroaches, Oriental region (Rothney in Sharp, 1899): Nesting sites are in crevices in bark. The female grasps the cockroach by an antenna to drag it to her nest.
Ampulex sibirica Fabricius
Synonymy.—Perkins referred to this species as Ampulex sibirica. Williams (1942a), referring to Perkins's observations, mentions the species as "A. compressiventris Guérin (=A. siberica Sauss.)." Krombein (personal communication, 1956) has commented upon this synonymy as follows: Ampulex siberica Sauss. is apparently a misidentification by Saussure of sibirica Fab. Kohl (1893) in his revision of the genus Ampulex considered A. compressiventris Guérin to be the correct name for this common African species and that sibirica, described from Siberia, must be another species. However, Turner (1912) stated that he had seen Fabricius's type specimen and that it was identical with what had been called compressiventris; he considered the Siberian locality given by Fabricius as an error. Krombein suggested that Williams's use of the combination siberica Sauss. was a lapsus and that the valid name, if Turner is correct, is sibirica Fab.
Natural hosts.—Cockroaches, West Africa (Perkins in Sharp, 1899): Nesting sites are keyholes. Enters apartments in search of cockroaches. Wasp cocoon protrudes from dead body of cockroach.
Ampulex sonnerati Kohl
Synonymy.—"La mouche bleue" of Sonnerat (Kohl, 1893).