Hibiscus mealybug, Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), is the major pest of many vegetables, fruits, crops, and ornamental plants causing losses to the farmers and its control has been an issue of significance in the pest management. This study was aimed at evaluating different concentrations (0.06%, 0.1%, and 0.14%) of Telsta, Advantage, Talstar, Imidacloprid, and their mixtu...

Molecular species identification is becoming more wide-spread in diagnostics and ecological studies, particularly with regard to insects for which morphological identification is difficult or time-consuming. In this study, we describe the development and application of a single-step multiplex PCR for the identification of three mealybug species (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) associated with grapev...

The homeobox genes ladybird in Drosophila and their vertebrate counterparts Lbx1 genes display restricted expression patterns in a subset of muscle precursors and are both implicated in diversification of muscle cell fates. In order to gain new insights into mechanisms controlling conserved aspects of cell fate specification, we have performed a gain-of-function (GOF) screen for modifiers of th...

The eggplant mealybug, Coccidohystrixinsolita (Green) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), is recorded from the island of Guam in the Mariana Islands for the first time. Factors indicating that this introduced mealybug has the potential to become a pest of economic importance for agriculture and horticulture on Guam are discussed.

The citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri (Risso) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), is the main grapevine pest in vineyards in some countries, such as Spain and Brazil. In Galician vineyards (northwestern Spain), mealybug population levels are low because the accumulated degree-days are lower than in other grapevine-growing areas. The main problem caused by mealybugs is the transmission of viruses, eve...

Two experiments were performed in the laboratory to understand the relationships between oviposition preference and larval performance of the two predatory hoverfly species, Episyrphus balteatus de Geer and Metasyrphus corollae Fabricius. We first conducted laboratory experiments to understand the nature and relative strengths of intraguild predation between the larvae of three ladybird species...

1. Environmental cues associated with prey are known to increase predator foraging efficiency. Ladybird larvae are major predators of aphids. The sugary excretion of aphids (honeydew) has been proposed to serve as a prey-associated cue for ladybird larvae. 2. Ladybird larvae are regularly found on the ground moving between plants or after falling off plants. The use of prey-associated cues woul...

Intracellular bacterial supply of essential amino acids is common among sap-feeding insects, thus complementing the scarcity of nitrogenous compounds in plant phloem. This is also the role of the two mealybug endosymbiotic systems whose genomes have been sequenced. In the nested endosymbiotic system from Planococcus citri (Pseudococcinae), "Candidatus Tremblaya princeps" and "Candidatus Moranel...

In Drosophila melanogaster, Vestigial (Vg) and Scalloped (Sd) form a transcription factor complex and play a crucial role in wing development. To extend our knowledge of insect wing formation, we isolated vg and sd homologues from two ladybird beetle species, Henosepilachna vigintioctopunctata and Harmonia axyridis. Although the ladybird beetle vg homologues had only low homology with D. melano...

Mealybug was considered to be a minor pest of cotton but it emerged as a major pest in 2006-2007 in North and Central zones. Extensive field surveys conducted in cotton fields during 2007-09 in Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab in the North zone and Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat in the Central zone indicated that Phenacoccus solenopsis was the only major species of mealybug recorded on co...