Diversinervus Silvestri 1915

Hosts. Hemiptera: Coccidae

elegans Silvestri 1915: 304

Type. DEZA

Distribution. E (Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura)

Host/habitat. Ceroplastes brevicauda, C. destructor, C. floridensis, C. rusci, C. sp., Coccus hesperidum, C. pseudomagnoliarum, Drepanococcus chiton, Eulecanium kunoense, Gascardia sp., Inglisia sp., Marsipococcus proteae, Parasaissetia nigra, Parthenolecanium corni, Pulvinaria floccifera, P. psidii, P. urbicola, Saissetia coffeae, S. oleae, S. persimilis, S. sp.

Remarks. The first effort to import this species (in a Saissetia oleae biocontrol program) into California was in 1931, but the stock perished in transit (Compere 1931). Successive importations (from Eritrea in 1953 and Lebanon in the mid-1960s) proved more successful, and it was released throughout the state (Lampson & Morse 1992). Initially, this species was recovered wherever S. oleae occurred in southern California (Bartlett & Medved 1966), but later studies found it only established in the coastal region of southern California (Kennett 1986; Lampson & Morse 1992), possibly as a result of being outcompeted by other imported natural enemies. Lampson and Morse (1992) suggested that D. elegans can act as a hyperparasitoid, but the detailed studies of Bartlett & Medved (1966) found no evidence of such (although second instar larvae will engage in combat to reduce the number of supernumeraries). Specimens from UCRC are recorded from Aonidiella aurantii, but I suspect these are misidentified.