Mitt. Dtsch. Ges. allg. angew. Ent., 15: 251-256, 2006

Longevity of the ladybird predator Serangium parcesetosum Sicard (Col., Coccinellidae) on natural and artificial nutritional sources

Abstract: The little known ladybird, Serangium parcesetosum Sicard (Col., Coccinellidae) seems to be a specialist predator of whiteflies. However, studying of longevity of a predator is one of the important features to use it successfully in biological control against a pest species. Such knowledge about S. parcesetosum is still insufficient or completely lacking in the literature. Therefore, this work aimed to investigate how long S. parcesetosum would survive with Bemisia tabaci (Genn.) and Trialeurodes vaporariorum Westwood (Hom., Aleyrodidae) as well as on certain artificial nutritional sources at two different temperatures in the laboratory. The results showed that on cotton with B. tabaci, both sexes had significantly lived longer than on the other nutritional sources, except males at 30°C. At both temperatures, the females had significantly lived longer than males on all nutritional sources. The longevity of both sexes ranged from a mean of 94.3 to 175.4 days at 18°C as well as 50.3 to 92.4 days at 30°C on all the natural nutritional sources tested. S. parcesetosum adults females and males survived for a considerable period of time on artificial nutritional sources. At both temperatures, the mean longevity period of both sexes was significantly longer on 10% honey emulsion than on cotton leaves or when left without food.