Gahaniella Timberlake 1926

Hosts. Primary or hyperparasitoid of Hemiptera: Asterolecaniidae, Coccidae, Ortheziidae, Pseudococcidae californica Timberlake 1926: 26

Type. USNM

Distribution. W (Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Benito, San Diego, Stanislaus)

Host/habitat. Alichtensia argentina, Coccus hesperidum, Eulecanium perinflatum, Parthenolecanium corni, Saissetia coffeae, possibly as a hyperparasitoid

Remarks. Although Timberlake (1926) reared this species from P. corni, no definitive biological studies of this species have been conducted. One congener, G. tertia, is a hyperparasitoid of Planococcus citri via Leptomastix dactylopii (Kerrich 1953), and a second, G. saissetiae Timberlake, 1926, has been recorded from several families of scales (Noyes 2001) and is suspected of being hyperparasitic on Saissetia oleae (Compere 1939c), although Trjapitzin (2010) considered the entire genus was hyperparasitic. De Santis (1989) reported the host of G. californica as “Cochinilla blanda”: Noyes (2001) treated this host as a pseudococcid, but it is a common name for C. hesperidum (see De Santis & Monetti 2008: 97).