New advances in natural history characterization and biological observations of antagonist flies of pest stink bugs

Natural enemies are a good alternative for pest control. To enhance their role as biocontrol agents, understanding their biology and ecology is necessary. Pentatomid hemipterans are pests of important crops, and tachinids are natural enemies of their adult stage. Neobrachelia edessae (Diptera: Tachinidae) is a Neotropical parasitoid fly of the stink bug Edessa meditabunda (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae). It belongs to the subfamily Phasiinae tribe Parerigonini, with practically unknown biology. We evaluated the life history of this parasitoid offering hosts to mated females and described morphological characteristics of larval instars. Hosts were kept under controlled conditions until death or emergence of parasitoids’ pupae. Differences in developmental times and longevity were evaluated considering the number of larvae inside each host, the sex of the parasitized host, and the sex of the F1 fly. Egg to pupa development time was affected by the number of larvae developing inside host’s body. On average, 27 days were needed to complete the larval stages if the larva developed in solitary, meanwhile 30 days on average were needed when the larvae developed with siblings within the host. Pupa to adult development time was on average 19 days. Average adult longevity was 11 days. Neither the sex of the parasitized host nor the sex of the F1 fly affected developmental times nor longevity of F1 adult flies. Given that biological information of this species is scarce, as it is the case for most tachinid species, these results are relevant for the design of biological control programs in the future.