Abstract
Abstract A description is provided for Metarhizium anisopliae . Information is included on the disease caused by the organism, its transmission, geographical distribution, and hosts. HOSTS: Wide range of insects, including Orthoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera and Hymenoptera , also Arachnida , from soil and from a crocodile (Austwick in Tulloch, 1976). Latch (1965) quotes 166 insect species attacked in nature, and Veen (1968) lists 204 hosts under their respective orders from the literature up to 1965. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION: World wide. DISEASE: The green muscardine fungus. Entry is probably both by ingestion of spores and by penetration through the integument. For an account of the work of Zacharuk (1970-1974) on the germination of spores, formation of appressorial cells, penetrant pegs through the epicuticle and sub-epicuticular penetrant plates giving rise to hyphal bodies that circulate in thehaemolymph, see Ferron (1978). All stages of the host are affected, chlamydospores forming in the cadaver and subsequently germinating to produce the familiar green spores on the surface. On a given host, strains vary in their virulence (Ferron, 1978). The fungus causes an economically important disease of silkworms, and Veen (1968) gives an account of the disease in the locust.
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