BACKGROUND Nephaspis indus Gordon, 1996 was imported into Taiwan from Hawaii in 1990 as a biological control agent for the spiralling whitefly, Aleurodicus dispersus Russell, 1965 (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae). However, its establishment was not known prior to this study. NEW INFORMATION Nephaspis indus Gordon, 1996, a natural enemy of Aleurodicus dispersus Russell (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) native ...

The harlequin ladybird beetle Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera, Coccinellidae) has invaded and established in Slovakia. Following unintentional introduction in 2008, the spread of the alien coccinellid was very fast. By the end of 2009, it was recorded across the whole country, and by the end of 2012 it was widely distributed and common in various habitats, particularly gardens, orchards and urban...

The hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae Annand, is generally believed to be native to Asia and is known to occur in India, Japan, and China. In China, there are approximately four species of hemlock that grow in 14 provinces. We explored regions of the Southwestern Plateau in Yunnan, Sichuan, and Shaanxi Provinces for the adelgid and its natural enemies. The montaneforests of this region are...

The genus Serangium Blackburn from China is reviewed. The genus Catanella Miyatake is removed from synonymy with Serangium. Serangium baculum Xiao is transferred to Catanella, as Catanella baculum (Xiao), comb. n. Twelve species of Serangium are described, keyed and illustrated, including eight new species, Serangium magnipunctatum Wang & Ren, sp. n., Serangium trimaculatum Wang & Ren, sp. n., ...

DNA sequences of the first ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS1) were isolated from 10 ladybird beetle species (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) representing four subfamilies (Coccinellinae, Chilocorinae, Scymninae, and Coccidulinae). The spacers ranged in length from 791 to 2,572 bp, thereby including one of the longest ITS1s and exhibiting one of the most extreme cases of ITS1 size variation...

Male killing bacteria are common in insects and are thought to persist in host populations primarily by indirect fitness benefits to infected females, whereas direct fitness effects are generally assumed to be neutral or deleterious. Here, we estimated the effect of male killer infection on direct fitness (number of eggs laid, as a measure of fecundity, together with survival) and other life-hi...

The hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae Annand, is a major threat to hemlocks in the eastern United States. As part of efforts to control this pest, Scymnus (Neopullus) sinuanodulus Yu et Yao, a potential predator, was collected from hemlocks in Yunnan, China. Three shipments were imported during 1996 and 1997 to a quarantine laboratory to study the beetleÕs biology. Beetles began ovipositio...

While the effect of several factors such as predator and prey size, morphology and developmental stage on intraguild predation (IGP) is widely investigated, little is known about the influence of diet on the occurrence and outcome of IGP. In the present study, the effect of the diet experienced during larval development on IGP between the ladybird Harmonia axyridis and the syrphid Episyrphus ba...

The lady beetle, Curinus coeruleus (Mulsant), a biological control agent of the coconut mealybug, Nipaecoccus nipae (Maskell) and the psyllid, Heteropsylla cubana Crawford, was examined for its ability to consume Aedes albopictus (Skuse) eggs in the laboratory. Most C. coeruleus larvae in this test preyed on A. albopictus eggs (75% for the 2 and 3 instar and 71% for the 4 instar). The 2 and 3 i...

Our research focuses on developing techniques to rear ladybird beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae). We evaluated the effects of rearing density on survival, growth, and development of Coleomegilla maculata. The hypothesis that a low to moderate rearing density has limited or no effects on survival and development was tested. C. maculata first instars were reared to pupae at a density of 1, 5, 1...