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Ferrisia virgata
White body and antennae, looks like a nymph. Less than 1cm in length, including the antennae. Found a matching ID in the discussion of cassava pests in Africa: http://www.infonet-biovision.org/default.... The striped mealybug (Ferrisia virgata) is a whitish mealybug with two longitudinal dark stripes, long glassy wax threads and two long tails. It attains a length of 4 mm. The striped mealybug occurs on the underside of leaves near the petioles and on the stems. It sucks sap but does not inject any toxin into plants. Severely attacked plants show general symptoms of weakening but do not show distortion. It is a minor pest of cassava, and no control is usually required as is controlled naturally by natural enemies. According to Wikipedia: Mealybugs are insects in the family Pseudococcidae, unarmored scale insects found in moist, warm climates. They are considered pests as they feed on plant juices of greenhouse plants, house plants and subtropical trees and also acts as a vector for several plant diseases.
Spotted it on a pod of a Caesalpinia pulcherrima plant (Peacock Flower). Backyard, in Biñan Laguna, Philippines.
Spotted on Oct 13, 2012
Submitted on Oct 13, 2012
7 Comments
You're right Agnes. It's a mealybug :)
I'm ecstatic! I finally found a match. It's a striped mealybug (Ferrisia virgata). http://www.infonet-biovision.org/default.... Thanks for your suggestions Leana and PerilsOfPlastic.
Thanks PerilsOfPlastic. I looked up Wooly Aphids in the internet, but none of the images I saw matched my spotting. :(
is there something like wooly aphids?
wow,, nice find,,
Thank you Leana. I'm going to check it.
It might be a Wooly Aphid, Agnes...