Gahaniella Timberlake 1926

Zuparko, Robert L., 2015, Annotated Checklist of California Encyrtidae (Hymenoptera), Zootaxa 4017 (1), pp. 1-126 : 29-30

Gahaniella Timberlake 1926

Hosts. Primary or hyperparasitoid of Hemiptera : Asterolecaniidae , Coccidae , Ortheziidae , Pseudococcidae californica Timberlake 1926: 26

Type. USNM

Distribution. W (Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Benito, San Diego, Stanislaus)

Host/habitat. Alichtensia argentina , Coccus hesperidum , Eulecanium perinflatum , Parthenolecanium corni , Saissetia coffeae , possibly as a hyperparasitoid

Remarks. Although Timberlake ( 1926) reared this species from P. corni , no definitive biological studies of this species have been conducted. One congener, G. tertia , is a hyperparasitoid of Planococcus citri via Leptomastix dactylopii ( Kerrich 1953) , and a second, G. saissetiae Timberlake, 1926 , has been recorded from several families of scales ( Noyes 2001) and is suspected of being hyperparasitic on Saissetia oleae ( Compere 1939 c), although Trjapitzin ( 2010) considered the entire genus was hyperparasitic. De Santis ( 1989) reported the host of G. californica as “Cochinilla blanda”: Noyes ( 2001) treated this host as a pseudococcid, but it is a common name for C. hesperidum (see De Santis & Monetti 2008: 97).