Abstract
Factitious prey are preferentially used to rear lady beetles in the laboratory in lieu of natural prey with an aim towards facilitating and lowering the cost of producing these predators. We tested the hypothesis that live dipteran larvae of Drosophila melanogaster Meigen (factitious prey) meet the nutritional requirements of the coleopteran Coleomegilla maculata and can substitute for its natural aphid prey [Lipaphis erysimi (Kaltenbach)]. The biological cycle of C. maculata was faster and the immature stages suffered a lower rate of mortality when fed D. melanogaster larvae rather than when fed L. erysimi. The factitious prey resulted in improved reproductive attributes for C. maculata, with the exception of fecundity. The N content was the same for both prey types, but the dipteran larvae had a higher C content, water content and C:N ratio than the aphids. The conclusion of this study is that D. melanogaster larvae are adequate factitious prey for the development and reproduction of C. maculata under laboratory conditions.
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