Historical biogeography of the cosmopolitan spider wasp genus Ceropales (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae)

Our aim was to determine the age and processes that lead to the cosmopolitan distribution of Ceropales, which is a genus of cleptoparasitic spider wasps, whose females steal spiders captured by other spider wasps. The fossil record and previous dating analyses suggest that Pompilidae, and thus Ceropales, is no older than 60Ma. Because Ceropales is younger than Pangaea, Laurasia, or Gondwana, processes not related to continental drift must explain its present distribution. We studied the historical biogeography of Ceropales using molecular data to construct a chronogram, which was dated using fossils. We also estimated ancestral areas using a Bayesian approach. Our results suggest that Ceropales originated in America in the Oligocene. Several long-distance dispersal events explain its present distribution.