The fate of an internal parasitoid, Nemeritis canescens, in a variety of insects

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Abstract
SUMMARY: The fate of Nemeritis canescens has been studied in 36 species or, counting different stages, in 51 kinds of insects, in order to discover the causes of its success or failure in each. The parasitoid was able to develop to the adult stage in 14 of the species studied. A defence reaction of the host, cellular encapsulation, was by far the most frequent cause of the death of canescens in species in which it could not develop. Deposition of melanin over its mouth probably caused the death of canescens in two species; in other species the role of melanisation was subordinate to encapsulation. Very few species, if any, were unsuitable as food; larvae of the parasitoid ingested and assimilated the blood of a wide variety of insects. Some individuals of a few species were unsuitable as a habitat for the parasitoid larva. The survival of canescens in suitable hosts is discussed with reference to the means by which this parasitoid resists defence reactions. Attention is drawn to incidental results of the research: (i) a state of diapause in some hosts was transmitted to first‐instar larvae of canescens and delayed their development; (ii) evidence was found that the teratocytes formed by braconid parasitoids function as a means of preventing cellular defence reactions, that they act by attrition of the host, and that they protect a larva of canescens present in the same host; (iii) observations concerning the behaviour of adult canescens in attacking some species, and the survival of supernumerary larvae after competing for the host, are mentioned.

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