Aleiodes apicalis (Brullé, 1832)

Mifsud, David, Farrugia, Lucia & Shaw, Mark R., 2019, Braconid and ichneumonid (Hymenoptera) parasitoid wasps of Lepidoptera from the Maltese Islands, Zootaxa 4567 (1), pp. 47-60 : 58

Aleiodes apicalis (Brullé, 1832)

Material examined: MALTA, Wied il-Kbir, 20. xii.2014, 1 ex., from Lepidoptera larva feeding on Rumex conglomeratus which was collected in March of 2014, MZ, DMC; Torri l-Abjad, 27. xii.2005, 1 ♀, emerged from unidentified Lepidoptera larva feeding on Lactuca , MZ, DMC [parasitoids determined by Mark Shaw; hosts determined by Michael Zerafa].

Notes: This species was recorded from Malta by Papp (2015) as Aleiodes (Aleiodes) ductor var. reticulator (Nees, 1834) . Although this species has been widely misidentified as a form of A. ductor , its correct name is A. apicalis . It is a koinobiont endoparasitoid of plusiine noctuids, and may even be restricted to Autographa gamma (Linnaeus) . On reviewing the above-mentioned material, it was noted that they had both emerged from a lepidopteran larval mummy. The host Lepidoptera remains were both determined as certainly a plusiine noctuid, probably Autographa gamma by Mark Shaw.