Predator insects are a class of insects that parasitize or prey on other insects. They have long controlled the development and spread of pests in agricultural lands, forest areas and pastures.
Predatory predator insects
Predatory predator insects are generally larger than their host prey, and they capture and devour their flesh or suck their bodily fluids.
1. Praying mantis
Mantises can prey on more than 40 species of pests, such as flies, mosquitoes, locusts, moths and butterflies and their larvae, bare pupae, crickets and other small insects, cicadas, locusts, cockroaches and other large insects. It can be used as a natural enemy of pests such as aphids, large wax borers, corn borers, vegetable powder butterflies, soil elements, and yellow mealworms.
2. Ladybird family
The feeding habits of insects of the ladybird family can be roughly divided into three categories: plant-feeding, bacterial-eating and predatory.
Predatory ladybirds prey on plants such as aphids, mesquiterats, whiteflies, leaf mites, etc.
The Ladybird preys on aphids
Helmet-lip ladybirds prey on insect shells
Small ladybirds prey on mealybugs and leaf mites
Small ladybugs prey on meal lice and leaf mites
Plant-feeding ladybirds feed on solanaceae, cucurbitaceae and legumes and become important agricultural pests.
Fungal ladybirds feed on fungi (hyphae and spores of powdery mildew).
Food fungus gourd (adult gourd of 20-star bacteria)
3. Predatory mites
Predatory mites sometimes help control plant-eating mites. For example, Chilean mites, blunt mites, malformed mites and so on
Chilean mites
Blunt mites
Terats
Cotton leaf mites, also known as cotton red spiders, are harmful in five major cotton areas in China.
The citrus red spider will greatly reduce the yield of oranges.
4. Grasshoppers
Grasshoppers can prey on a variety of pests. According to preliminary statistics, there are whiteflies, red spiders, cotton aphids, vegetable aphids, smoke aphids, wheat aphids, bean aphids, peach aphids, apple aphids, safflower aphids and other aphids, in addition, this species also likes to eat the eggs of many kinds of pests, such as cotton bollworms, ground tigers, silver-striped nocturnal moths, ganlan group moths, wheat moths and small bridge worms, etc., are within its food range.
5. Bugs
Insects of the family Phylloscopidae, Brachyceae and Theophyllaceae can prey on pests such as leafhoppers, planthoppers, aphids, thrips, cotton leaf mites and cotton mite eggs.
6. Eating aphid flies
Predatory species in aphid-eating flies are predominantly predatory aphids, which are effective natural enemies of aphids, mesozoans, whiteflies, leafhoppers, thrips, lepidoptera larvae, etc.
Parasitic predator insects
The larvae of the inner parasitic insect live inside the parasite and the external parasitic insect lives outside the parasite.
1. Red-eyed bees
Red-eyed wasps are egg parasitic wasps that can parasitize eggs from lepidopteran pests such as corn borers, armyworms, striped borers, cotton bollworms, twill moths and ground tigers in corn fields.
2. Tsubasae
It is mainly parasitic to the black-tailed leafhopper and the cotton pest cotton leafhopper.
3. Cocoon bees
Cocoon bees are mostly beneficial insects, they parasitize many important pests, and play a certain role in controlling the number of pests.
Wheat moth cocoon bee, parasitic rice moth, Indian valley spot borer, tobacco powder borer, Mediterranean mealybug, purple spotted valley borer and other larvae, often seen in warehouses and homes;
Red bell beetle-bellied cocoon bee, parasitic red bellworm, diamond diamond, sugarcane curl moth, soybean heart-eating worm, etc., as an egg to larval stage parasitic wasp;
Borer velvet cocoon bee, parasitic armyworm, Lloyd's armyworm, grass gray-winged night moth, striped borer, dihua borer, three-way borer, rice longitudinal leaf borer, rice bracts, rice eye butterfly, cotton bollworm, cotton bridge worm, twill nocturnal moth and silver nocturnal moth and many other kinds of pests larvae, cocoon like rice grains, quite eye-catching;
Corn borer long-distance cocoon bee, parasitizing larvae such as corn borer;
Spotted mole hanging cocoon bee, parasitic cotton small bridge worm, cotton bollworm, purple four-eyed moth, cotton large curl leaf borer, mulberry red belly lamp moth, mulberry borer, mulberry sword pattern nocturnal moth, melon silk borer, beet nocturnal moth, twill nocturnal moth, silver moth, smoke moth, armyworm, rice buds, pear small heartworm and other pests of larvae, its cocoon is like wheat grains, silk hanging.
4. Parasitism
Parasitic flies are one of the parasitic natural enemies of agricultural, forestry, fruit and vegetable pests, and most of the larvae of lepidoptera and leaf beetle insects can be parasitized by parasitic flies; the larvae of the celestial cow and wood beetle moth living in the stem of the plant, the larvae of the scarab beetle living in the soil, are also parasitized by parasites; the larvae of aquatic large mosquitoes, with crowned hair and long-beaked parasitism; the larvae of trichophylloptera have marsh water parasitism; the parasites can parasitize adult insects such as beetles and bugs. Therefore, it is an important biological factor affecting the occurrence of a variety of pests.