Sphaeropthalminae Schuster, 1949

Subfamily Sphaeropthalminae Schuster, 1949

This subfamily was classified into three tribes by Brothers & Lelej (2017), namely Dasymutillini Brothers & Lelej, 2017, Pseudomethocini Brothers, 1975 (subdivided into Euspinoliina Brothers & Lelej, 2017 and Pseudomethocina), and Sphaeropthalmini Schuster, 1949 . However, based on phylogenomic analysis, Waldren et al. (2023) recognized Dasymutillini, Ephutini Ashmead, 1903 (transferred from Mutillinae : Mutillini ), Euspinoliini, Pseudomethocini, Sphaeropthalmini , and six unnamed clades within this subfamily. Morphological reassessment of the tribal classification would be awaited.

This is apparently the most diverse subfamily in the Americas ( Pagliano et al. 2020; Williams et al. 2024). In the Old World and the Australasian Region, this subfamily is represented by the genera Cystomutilla André, 1896 , Hemutilla Lelej, Tu & Chen in Tu et al., 2014 ( Sphaeropthalmini ), and nine genera that were previously placed in Dasymutillini but not assigned to a tribe in the recent classification ( Brothers & Lelej 2017; Waldren et al. 2023). These nine genera are predominantly distributed in the Australasian Region, and few species are known from Wallacea (Lelej 2005, 2024; Brothers 2022). In East Asia, one Cystomutilla species and six Hemutilla species have been recorded from China, South Korea, and Japan ( Tu et al. 2014; Zhou et al. 2018a). The records of Hemutilla given below represent the southernmost range of this genus. Formerly, the genera Cockerellidia Lelej & Krombein, 1999 and Karlidia Lelej in Lelej & Krombein, 1999 known from Southeast Asia were placed in the Pseudomethocini ( Lelej & Krombein 1999). They were subsequently assigned to the subtribe Ephutina of Mutillini Latreille, 1802 ( Brothers & Lelej 2017) and now to Odontomutillinae ( Waldren et al. 2023).