Tiphia vernalis (parasitoid)
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Author(s): Mike Reding & Betsy Anderson, USDA Agricultural Research Service
Source: IPM Images
Tiphia vernalis (parasitoid) Rohwer, 1924
This digger wasp is native to eastern Asia and has been introduced into North America in the 1920s and 1930s, as part of a classical biological control program. Releases continued sporadically until the early 1950s. It is a solitary ectoparasitoid of the invasive Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica, and other Popillia larvae. In North America, it also excepts larvae of the Oriental beetle (Anomala orientalis) as host.
The adult wasps emerge from the soil in spring and visit flowers for feeding on nectar. It can be common on turf where females search for signs of white grub infestations. After locating a grub in the soil, the female stings the grub, paralysing it, and lays an egg on the ventral side of the abdomen near the thorax. Development of the larva can be completed within little more than 3 weeks under laboratory conditions. The rate of parasitism found in some surveys has exceeded 50% (Rogers & Potter, 2004).
