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- ›Aphelinidae
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- ›Aphytini
- ›Aphytis
Red Scale Parasite
Aphytis melinus
Aphytis melinus is an internal parasite of the California red scale, Aonidiella aurantii, which is a pest of citrus in California and elsewhere. This chalcid wasp drums its antennae against the scale insect to find out if it is healthy, if it is already parasitized, how large it is, etc., to decide how to use this prey. It has four choices (from worst to best): leave the scale to keep searching, feed directly on the scale,...
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Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
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Every page naming Aphytis melinus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 298822.