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Scouting Citrus for Pests - Page 19
Fortunately, the initial pest explosion in Florida has gradually died down as biological equilibrium re-establishes, a frequent scenario with new invaders. An important equilibrium factor is undoubtedly hungry insect predators and parasites discovering a new food source. Their efforts have been supplemented by a foreigner, Ageniaspis citricola, a tiny parasitic wasp which evolved with citrus leafminer in its Asian home. The female actively seeks out the tiny leafminer egg, punctures it with her "ovipositor" (egg tube) and lays an even tinier egg inside. Instead of developing immediately, the leafminer is allowed to feed, grow and even spin a pupal cell before one or more tiny wasps consume the hapless host from within. One to 12 grubs
then pupate inside the leafminer skin to later emerge as wasps in search of more leafminers.
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