Natural Enemies of Some Lygus Bugs1

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Abstract
Known parasites of lygus bugs include several species each of Mymaridae from eggs, Braconidae mainly from nymphs. and Tachinidae from adults. In California, eggs of Lygus Hesperus Knight in alfalfa are commonly attacked by Anaphes ovijentaus (Crosby and Leonard): 50 samples from 14 counties averaged a parasitization of 46.6%. Nymphs of L. Hesperus and L. elisus Van Duzee in parts of southern California and Arizona and of L. lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois) in New Jersey are lightly parasitized by the braconid Euphoriana uniformis Gahan. Parasitization by E. uniformis in 10 local alfalfa fields increased From less than 1% in May to 5.7 and 11.0% in September or October, 1963-64. The related braconid Leiophron(=Euphorus) pallipes Curtis is a common parasite of Lygus spp. and other Miridae in Europe and North America, except in the Southwestern United States. L. pallipes also parasitized L. hesperus and L. elisus in the laboratory, and initial releases were made in several local alfalfa fields. Tachinid parasites were very scarce or absent in all areas studied. The common hemipterous predators Geocoris spp. and Nabis spp. are frequently parasitized by Tachinidae in southern California, the former by Hyalomya aldrichii Townsend, which also attacks Nysius raphanus Howard, and the latter by Leucostoma simplex (Fallen). Many Geocoris eggs were parasitized by Telenomus sp. near opacus (Howard). Laboratory studies showed that both eggs and nymphs of L. hesperus were readily attacked by Geocoris adults and the nymphs by Nabis adults and nymphs.

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