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Genus Copidosoma

Plusiinae larva, looks like a mummy - Copidosoma Small Hymenoptera? - Copidosoma Wasp - Copidosoma - female Encrytidae? - Copidosoma Encyrtid ex Strepsicrates smithiana - Copidosoma chalcidoid - Copidosoma Chalcidoidea - Copidosoma Encyrtid Wasp - Copidosoma - female
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon ("Parasitica" - Parasitoid Wasps)
Superfamily Chalcidoidea (Chalcidoid Wasps)
Family Encyrtidae (Encyrtid Wasps)
Subfamily Encyrtinae
Genus Copidosoma
Explanation of Names
Copidosoma Ratzeburg 1844
Numbers
>20 spp. in our area, almost 200 spp. worldwide(1)
Life Cycle
A female lays only a few eggs on the egg of its lepidopteran host. The eggs multiply by cloning into as many as a few thousand (polyembryony). The larvae don't begin growing until the caterpillar has reached a certain size.
largest broods (>3000 individuals) reported in C. floridanum, a cosmopolitan parasitoid of various Plusiinae (Noctuidae) (Alvarez 1997)