Leptoglossus zonatus

Leptoglossus zonatus in Lemon Grove, California

Leptoglossus zonatus is an American type of boundary bugs ( Coreidae ). It comes from the southern United States (including Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana and Texas ) through Mexico and Central America to southern Brazil before. The species is regarded as a pest on various crops such as citrus fruits and cotton.

Features

The adults of 19 to 21 millimeters long. Your basic color consists of a range of various brown tones. The animals have on their Hemielytren transverse, white zig-zag lines and two large yellowish spots on the prothorax, which represent a taxonomic distinction from other Leptoglossus species. Also characteristic are flat, calibrated sheet-like extensions of the tibiae of the posterior pair of legs. The nymphs have an orange to reddish brown staining. Your legs are black and have no oak leaf -like extensions in the first stages on.

Way of life

According to experiences from Louisiana, the animals are spotted throughout the year. Increasingly, they come before but in the warmer months. The animals are often irrespective of their stage of development groups. Presumably, this is caused by specific aggregation pheromones. The bugs also have various other pheromones, which are used for defense (alarm pheromones), or detection of potential host plants (marking pheromones).

Leptoglossus zonatus is a polyphagous Wanzenart. She sucks example of fruits and seeds of cotton, citrus plants, many solanaceous plants such as tomato or eggplant, cucurbits, avocado plants and grains. For this, they sting with their mouthparts into the fruit and leave toxic digestive juices into it. They can also serve as host of the fungus Nematospora coryli. As a result of Engraving and possibly simultaneous contamination by other diseases, the fruits or seeds die in the development phase from or later have to lower substance or develop mottled spots on its surface.

Development

The animals put on small stems or leaf veins is 1.47 mm long, light green, cylindrical eggs that turn brown with time. The eggs have a page on a round thickening, which are used by the nymphs as an exit point. The eggs are (on average but about 15 pieces ) is stored along stems or leaf veins in a chain of up to 50 pieces. After hatching, the bugs go through five nymphal stages. The nymphs develop under ideal conditions in around 30 days. The approximate life expectancy of the animals is for females 70 for males 55 days.

Combat

As a pest is this bug with different insecticides or alternative biological agents, such as, for example, fought by pathogenic fungi or parasites.