Eufriesea is a genus of euglossine bees. Like all orchid bees, they are restricted to the Neotropics. All species range from entirely to at least partially metallic (the face and/or tegulae), tho... [more]

Tribolium castaneum, the red flour beetle, is a secondary pest of stored grain. It has emerged as a premier genetic model organism for studies of development and pest management. A robust RNAi response at any life stage has enabled functional studies of all live stages covering processes from development to physiology. In terms of genetic and transgenic tools including genome wide RNAi screening, T. castaneum is an insect model second only to D. melanogaster.

T. castaneum is a cosmopolitan pest of wheat that is easily reared in the laboratory on a diet of whole wheat flour supplemented with 5% yeast. At... [more]

Dufourea novaeangliae is a solitary ground-nesting bee that lives in the eastern U.S. The range of these bees is presumably limited by the availability of its only known pollen source, the pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata). This is an aquatic freshwater plant, and thus D. novaeangliae nests are often found in sandy soil near ponds and streams [1]. Most female D. novaeangliae build a single nest in a season, with the offspring over-wintering as prepupae in a cocoon [2]. In the spring, males emerge approximately one week prior to females [2], and they patrol pickerel weed flowers or nesting aggregations for recep... [more]

The alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundata F. (Megachildae) is a Eurasian solitary bee species that was inadvertently introduced to North America sometime before the 1940s. By the mid 1950s, M. rotundata had become established in the farming regions of western United States. With the discovery of M. rotundata’s pollination impact on alfalfa seed production, early efforts to increase its populations near alfalfa fields were undertaken a few years later. Currently, M. rotundata is the most intensely managed solitary bee species in the world and is surpassed only by the honey bee for its economic impact. [more]

Melipona quadrifasciata is a eusocial bee in the hymenopteran family Apidae. This species belongs to the Meliponini tribe of stingless bees, which is the only other lineage of bees with a complex social organization, comparable to that of the honey bees in the Apini tribe [1]. Similar to honey bees, M. quadrifasciata colonies are perennial and have a single reproductive queen with many non-reproductive workers. Several aspects of the social behavior of M. quadrifasciata differ substantially from that of honey bees, however. First, M. quadrifasciata colonies typically have 300-400 workers and are thus much smalle... [more]

The white-footed sweat bee, Lasioglossum albipes, is a halictid bee (Hymenoptera: Halictidae) that can be found throughout the Palearctic. Females construct their nests in the ground; they collect pollen from a variety of flowers and mass provision their young by building a pollen ball upon which they deposit a single egg (Michener 1974).

L. albipes is socially polymorphic, which means that females of this species are cabable of producing either solitary or eusocial nests (Plateaux-Quenu 1993). This species is eusocial in western France but solitary in eastern France and Germany where climates are cooler and nests ... [more]

Southeastern blueberry bee, Habropoda laboriosa

The southeastern blueberry bee (Habropoda laboriosa) is a solitary bee in the hymenopteran family Apidae. It is found throughout the eastern United States, where it is associated with a variety of host flowers [1]. It is an especially important pollinator of blueberries (Vaccinium sp.), and in some states is oligolectic on these hosts [2]. H. laboriosa uses buzz-pollination, similar to bumble bees (Bombus sp.) [2]. H. laboriosa females can visit more than 600 blueberry flowers to collect pollen for a single brood cell [3]. Over the course of a... [more]

Microplitis demolitor is a parasitoid wasp in the hymenopteran family Braconidae. It is native to eastern Australia but has been introduced into the United States as a biological control agent [1]. M. demolitor parasitizes several species of Lepidoptera that are important agricultural pests including Helicoverpa punctigera, H. armigera, and Chrysodeixis includens [1,2]. Female M. demolitor parasitize the larval stage of host species by laying one or more eggs into the body cavity (hemocoel). After hatching, wasp larvae develop by primarily feeding on blood. Usually a single mature wasp larva e... [more]

1. Description

The olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi), is the primary pest of olives. Olive fly’s larvae are monophagous, feeding exclusively on olive sap. Under favorable weather conditions, the flies have three to five generations per year, reaching extremely high population densities. The species expansion range closely follows that of the olive tree. It includes the entire Mediterranean basin, South and Central Africa, Canary Islands, the Near and Middle East, California and Central America. There have also been reports of Bactrocera species collected from wild olive trees in China, suggesting the presenc... [more]