Citrus Pests focuses on aiding the non-entomologist with general pest screening for adult insects (Class Insecta - ants, beetles, butterflies/moths, grasshoppers/katydids, flies, thrips, and true bugs) on cultivated citrus in the continental United States. The tool is not a comprehensive resource for all insect pests (or beneficial) species on citrus since such a resource would require many years and numerous experts to complete.
During the initial development of the tool, a Citrus Pest Advisory Committee (see Acknowledgements page) developed a comprehensive list of over 300 pest and beneficial arthropods that needed to be considered for inclusion into the tool. Since the tool was designed and scoped as a basic screening aid to support survey and detection support, 51 total species from the comprehensive list were selected by the authors based on the following criteria:
Citrus Pests provides identification support with an interactive key and/or fact sheets for 51 species, 2 genera (Bactrocera and Leptoglossus), 3 suborders of Hemiptera, and 7 orders (Diptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, and Thysanoptera).
The tool’s Lucid key allows users to key out an unknown specimen to one of 53 entities (51 species and 2 genera). Of these 53 entities, four taxa have been intercepted at U.S. ports but have not become established (Bactrocera spp., citrus longhorned beetle, Egyptian cotton worm, and Mexican fruit fly), and six species are not currently known in the U.S. but are of immediate concern to the citrus industry (African citrus psyllid, coffee mealybug, cucurbit beetle, false codling moth, Seychelles scale, and South African bean thrips).
Citrus Pests includes 61 fact sheets, complete with distribution, diagnostic, and host information, as well as high quality images, often representing various life stages for a taxon. Six of these fact sheets are for the orders ants, beetles, flies, grasshoppers and katydids, moths and butterflies, and thrips, and two fact sheets are for three suborders of Hemiptera (leaf-footed/stink bugs and true bugs). See the About the Fact Sheets page for more information on fact sheet content.
Citrus Pests
Content last updated June, 2012
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