Biological Control of Insect Pests: Southeast Asian Prospects - EcoPort

142 Biological Control of Insect Pests: Southeast Asian Prospects
Dysmicoccus brevipes (Cockerell)
Rating
Origin
Distribution
Taxonomy
Hemiptera, Pseudococcidae
pineapple mealybug
Southeast Asia China Southern and Western Pacific
+++ Viet +++ Cook Is, Guam
10 ++ Msia, Indo, Phil 17 ++ FSM, Niue, Van
+ Camb + + Kiri, N Cal, PNG, Sam,
Sol Is
P Brun, Thai P Fiji, Fr P, A Sam.
Tok, Tong, Tuv
Carter (1935) considered D. brevipes to be native to South America,
although Ferris (1950) believed it to be of North American origin. The
pineapple plant ( Ananas comosus)
is thought to be native to South America
and has been known in Central America since pre-Columbian times.
Although the pineapple mealybug is widely polyphagous, if it evolved in
association with pineapple plants, it would appear to be logical to assign its
origin to Central and/or South America.
D. brevipes is one of the most widespread mealybugs, occurring throughout
the tropics and in many temperate areas, especially those where pineapples
are grown (Williams and Watson 1988). These include tropical Africa,
Mauritius, tropical Asia, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia, Pacific islands
(including Hawaii), southern USA (Florida, Louisiana) West Indies and
Central and South America (Bartlett in Clausen 1978).
Dysmicoccus brevipes was earlier known as Pseudococcus brevipes,
but its
genus was changed by Ferris (1950). Before 1959 it was confused with a
similar mealybug (often on the same host plants), which was described by
Beardsley (1959) as Dysmicoccus neobrevipes.
Both species occur in
Hawaii, where D. brevipes is parthenogenetic and the females are pink,
whereas D. neobrevipes is bisexual and females are grey in colour.
Parthenogenetic D. brevipes is known also from Jamaica and West Africa
(Beardsley 1965).