Ablerus Howard, 1894

Lahey, Zachary & Stansly, Philip, 2015, An updated list of parasitoid Hymenoptera reared from the Bemisia tabaci species complex (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), Florida Entomologist 98 (2), pp. 456-456 : 456-

Ablerus Howard (Chalcidoidea: Azotidae )

Species of Ablerus (= Azotus Howard ) are most commonly recorded as primary, or hyperparasitoids, of immature Sternorrhyncha ( Hemiptera ) although certain species are known to attack lepidopteran eggs ( Darling & Johnson 1984) and the pupae of chamaemyiid Diptera ( Blanchard 1936). Material bred from whiteflies is typically assumed to be hyperparasitic on aphelinid primary parasitoids developing in the same host (Viggiani 1982; Evans 2007). Recently, Ablerus macrochaeta Silvestri was reported from B. tabaci in Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces in the People’s Republic of China following a 10 yr natural enemy census ( Li et al. 2011). Additional whitefly host records for A. macrochaeta include Aleurocanthus inceratus Silvestri , and the citrus blackfly, Aleurocanthus woglumi Ashby. The only other instance of an Ablerus species attacking a whitefly in the genus Bemisia is Ablerus inquirenda Silvestri parasitizing Bemisia (as Lipaleyrodes ) euphorbiae (David and Subramaniam) ( Evans 2007) .