Insects · Hemiptera · Aleyrodidae

Glasshouse Whitefly

Trialeurodes vaporariorum

Not Evaluated

It has not yet been assessed against the IUCN criteria. See full glossary

Trialeurodes vaporariorum, commonly known as the whitefly or glasshouse whitefly, is a hemipteran insect of the family Aleyrodidae that lives in the warm regions of the Earth. It can become a pest of many agricultural crops of fruit, vegetables and ornamental plants; it is frequently found in glasshouses and other protective structures used in growing crops. The adults measure 1 to 2 mm long, their body is yellowish and they have four wings covered in a kind of wax, which at rest lie parallel to the insect's body.

Size

up to 0.2 cm

Diet

Herbivore

Feeds mainly on plants.

Social structure

Colony

Lives in large concentrations, often for breeding reasons.

Sighting difficulty

Unknown

GrasslandHerbivore Colonial Insect Grassland

6countries

Fun facts

GeneralIt is controlled by releasing parasitoid wasps rather than with insecticides.
Despite its name it is not a fly: it is a hemipteran, a relative of the aphids and scale insects, with the sucking mouthparts characteristic of the group.
Its juvenile stages are immobile, flattened and translucent, stuck to the underside of the leaf, and are mistaken for scale insects or dirt.
It was the first success of biological control under glass: the wasp Encarsia formosa has been used against it in British glasshouses since before 1930.
The main damage is not the sap it takes but the honeydew it excretes, on which a sooty mould grows that coats the leaf and reduces photosynthesis.
It transmits plant viruses, among them beet pseudo-yellows virus, described in California in 1965.
The release technique consists of hanging cards on the plant bearing already parasitised whitefly pupae, from which the wasps emerge.