SURVEY OF HOST PLANTS OF MEALYBUGS (HEMIPTERA:PSEUDOCOCCIDAE) IN EGYPT, INCLUDING NEW HOST RECORDS

ABD-RABOUI, SHAABAN; MALAUSA, THIBAUT

doi:10.21608/ejar.2010.190711

SURVEY OF HOST PLANTS OF MEALYBUGS (HEMIPTERA:PSEUDOCOCCIDAE) IN EGYPT, INCLUDING NEW HOST RECORDS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Plant Protection Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

² Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, UMR 1301 INRA/UNSA/CNR.S. Equipe BPI. 900 route des Chappes. BP 167, 06903 Sophia Antipolis cedex. France.

10.21608/ejar.2010.190711

Abstract

Mealybugs (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) are widely spread pests of crops and ornamentals and cause high economic loss on a wide variety of plants. In order to improve and update our knowledge of mealybug species occurrence in Egypt, we reviewed the literature reporting infestations of mealybugs in Egypt and performed a complementary field survey throughout Egypt. Mealybugs infestations are: observed on 181 plant species and belonging to 133 genera and 79 families. The mealybug species most commonly recorded are (i) Planococcus (Risso), Planococcus ficus (Signoret), Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green), Dymicoccus trisponosus (Hall) and Femsia virgata (Cockerell) with 65, 26, 18, 13 and 12 host plant species, respectively. The rest of the mealybugs species ranged between 1-10 host plant species. The complementary field survey performed in this study revealed 32 host plants, including eighteen new host records in Egypt.