Cephus

noun

Ce·phus

ˈsēfəs

: a genus (the type of the family Cephidae) of small sawflies having larvae that bore in the stems of plants and including serious pests especially of cereal grasses see wheat stem sawfly

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, perhaps extracted from Greek kēphḗn "drone bee"

Note: Genus name introduced by the French entomologist Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833) in Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des Crustacés et des Insectes ("Sonnini's Buffon"), vol. 3 (Paris, An X [1802]), p. 303. Latreille gives no clue to the origin of the name, which replaces Sirex pygmaeus of Linnaeus.