What bugs are all females in Hawaii?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
April 17, 2002
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The pink pineapple mealybug (Dysmicoccus brevipes Cockerell) [dis' mi coc' cus bre vi' pes] feeds on the sap of pineapples and other plants. The mealybug can spread viral diseases which cause the loss of the plant. It reduces the size of the pineapple because of the loss of nutrients and it excretes honeydew, a perfect medium for the growth of sooty
mold.
In Brazil, both male and female pink pineapple mealybugs exist, but in Hawaii, the PPMs are all females. The Hawaiian variety is ovoviviparous; she retains her parthenogenic eggs until her daughters hatch, then gives birth to the larvae. These clones cling to the underside of the mother until they have formed an outer waxy coat.
Crawlers, the larval stage of all mealybugs, have flat bodies with long hairs. Mealybugs are poor at locomotion. The crawlers disperse to other plants by drifting on the wind.
Pink pineapple mealybugs have numerous predators, usually ladybugs, and parasites, usually small encyrtid wasps. The mealybugs do very poorly existing without the aid of big-headed ants, Argentine ants, or fire ants. The honeydew excreted by the mealybugs tends to gum the insects in place. Ants keep the mealybugs clean by feeding on the honeydew.
The ants also protect the mealybugs by killing predaceous ladybugs and scaring off parasitic wasps. The PPM problems faced by pineapple growers were solved by controlling the ant populations in the fields.
The New York State Experiment Station of Cornell University has an article on the 'mealybug destroyer', a black and tan ladybug from Australia.
Click here to learn more about this beneficial insect
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