Egg parasitoid wasps of the rice bug, Leptocorisa chinensis (Hemiptera: Alydidae) in the southern part of Shiga Prefecture

Abstract

The rice bug, Leptocorisa chinensis (Hemiptera: Alydidae) is a pest insect that feeds on rice ears, resulting in pecky rice. We collected the eggs of rice bugs in grassland overgrown with gramineous plants on July 17 and 24, 2018, in the southern part of Shiga Prefecture, and then investigated the species of egg parasitoids. Four species of egg parasitoids, Hadronotus japonicus and H. nigricornis (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) and Ooencyrtus nezarae and O. acastus (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), emerged from the eggs of rice bugs. Two species of wasps considered to be dominant, namely, H. japonicus and O. nezarae, exhibited high percentages of parasitism. Our study also recorded O. acastus parasitizing L. chinensis eggs for the first time in the literature.