Abstract
Encarsia formosa Gahan, a parasite of worldwide occurrence, is an effective enemy of the greenhouse whitefly, Trialcurodes vaporariorum (Westwood), at temperatures of 24°C and higher. It shows a preference for whiteflies on nonpubescent leaves. If no hosts were previously available, Encarsia adults fed readily on whitefly pupae when confined with them. Host-feeding by this parasite has not been reported previously. E. formosa is uniparental, though bisexual. Males occur rarely and, as with other Encarsia species, they develop hyperparasitically as parasites of Encarsia larvae. No explanation of their appearance has been previously suggested. In the present work, the whiteflies in which males developed always contained Encarsia larvae, while those in which female-producing eggs were deposited were always unparasitized at the time of oviposition. The male-producing, hyperparasitic habit of E. formosa females appears to materialize only if they are unable to find unparasitized hosts; therefore, adult males usually occur only if the parasite-host ratio is high.
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