Notes on Anatomy, Life-history, and Behaviour of Aphaereta pallipes (Say) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), a Parasite of the Onion Maggot, Hylemya antiqua (Meig.)

Abstract

During studies at Ottawa on the physioloLgy of the onion maggot, Hylemya antigua (Meig.), 29 per cent of 2,320 puparia that had been collected in muck soil at Ste. Clothilde, Que., in the autumn of 1957 were parasitized by the braconid Aphaereta pallipes (Say)2. There are few reports of this insect's parasitizing Diptera in Canada and none on its life-history orbehaviour. Hammond (1932) found it in first-generation puparia of the onion maggot at Ottawa. Wishart (1957) reared it from puparia of the cabbage maggot, Hylewyn brassicae (Bouché), collected from St. Martin and St. Rose, Que. Notes on the biologies of two other species of Aphaereta have been published by Graham-Smith (1919) and Evans (1933), the former on Aphaereta cephalotes (Hal.) and the latter on Aphaereta minuta Nees. Both species are parasites of carrion-infesting Diptera.