Ripiphoridae are unusual among beetle families in that many species are hypermetamorphic parasitoids, an attribute that they share with the Meloidae.

There the eggs hatch almost immediately into small planidial larvae and lie in wait for a visiting host.

It eats the entire pupa, then pupates in its turn and completes its metamorphosis before emerging from the hive to mate and lay eggs.

They mate and then the females lay eggs into wood using a long, stiff, needle-shaped ovipositor.

[7] Fossil species in the genera Paleoripiphorus, Macrosiagon, Cretaceoripidius, Flabellotoma, Burmitoma, Plesiotoma, and Amberocula have been described from mid- to lower-Cretaceous amber from sites in France, Germany and Myanmar.