terebrantia

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. In Latreille's system, one of the two prime divisions of the order Hymenoptera, comprising those forms which have the abdomen of the females furnished with an instrument employed as a saw or a borer for depositing their eggs: opposed to Aculeata, in which the abdomen is armed with a sting, and divided into Securifera and Pupivora. Westwood adopted this division, and divided the section into Phytophaga and Entomophaga, the former including the saw-flies (Tenthredinidæ) and horntails (Uroceridæ). and the latter the gall-flies (Cynipidæ), the parasitic Evaniidæ, Ichneumonidæ, Braconidæ, Chalcididæ, and Proctotrypidæ (grouped together under the term Spiculifera), and the rubytails or Chrysididæ, for which the term Tubulifera of MacLeay was adopted.
2. In Crustacea, the boring or burrowing cirripeds; the Alcippidæ.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A division of Hymenoptera including those which have an ovipositor adapted for perforating plants. It includes the sawflies.