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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #394388
Research Project: Systematics of Beetles, Flies, Moths and Wasps with an Emphasis on Agricultural Pests, Invasive Species, Biological Control Agents, and Food Security

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: Entomophagy in the little-known pyralid genus Cacotherapia (Galleriinae)

Author
item Solis, Maria

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/16/2022
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Cacotherapia is a genus of a dozen species in the Pyralidae that occur mostly in southwestern United States, with one species in the eastern U.S. and three species south of the U.S. border. It is in the tribe Cacotherapiini, and in the same subfamily, the Galleriinae, as the wax bee moth. In Cacotherapia a few species exhibit the unusual habit of feeding on scale insects and mealybugs (Hemiptera). A recent report of a Cacotherapia species feeding on the vine mealybug in Mexico provided an incentive to revisit the identity of its species. The type species, C. nigrocinereella (Hulst, 1900), was based on two specimens reared by USDA entomologist E. A. Schwarz in the 1890s, but the locality and dates given by Hulst were incorrect.