Abstract
Chalcid wasps (Chalcidoidea) form a superfamily of parasitic Hymenoptera very rich in species, with 1,535 species belonging to 17 families found in the Czech Republic to date. This number of species is mostly based on the latest monographic treatise on our fauna and subsequent faunistic addenda or independent descriptions and genus revisions within individual families.
The classification and nomenclature of the list of species presented here are adopted from the Universal Chalcidoidea Database. Overall, however, the information on the distribution of chalcid wasps in the Czech Republic is very scarce, incomplete and obsolete, making the conservation statuses of individual species very hard to evaluate.
Hence, the list presented only includes species those distribution range is thought to be very limited, or whose occurrence is restricted to some of the rapidly vanishing habitats, or if their host itself is an important and protected species (e.g. Mantis religiosa - serving as the host to Podagrion pachymerum).
A great majority of chalcid wasps parasitise various development stages of terrestrial or aquatic arthropods. Only a few species are phytophagous (e.g. the genus Tetramesa Walker, 1848, family Eurytomidae, the genus Megastigmus Dalman, 1820, family Torymidae), with some of them even forming galls on plants.
Chalcid wasps can be found in a variety of habitats, depending on their hosts in particular