Catalogue of encarsia and eretmocerus of the world [electronic resource].

Includes references.

The genera Encarsia Foerster and Eretmocerus Haldeman (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Aphelinidae) are the most efficient parasitoids of whiteflies (Homoptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodidae) in the fie ids and greenhouses (Abd-Rabou, 1998a). These genera have several species in different regions of the world. Presently, nearly 280 and 50 species of the Encarsia and Eretmocerus have been described, respectively and many more may be waiting to be discovered (Hayat, 1998 &Polaszek et al., 1999). Our knowledge of their biology and importance as biological control agents is restricted to a few species including, Encarsia formosa Gahan and Eretmocerus mundus Mercet (Abd-Rabou & Ghahari, 2005a) . These two species are reared commercially in different regions of the world because of cosmopolitan and have the effective role in control of the most common aieyrodids including, Trialeurodes vaporariorum Westwood and Bemisia tabaci Gennadius. Research interest in Encarsia and Eretmocerus have been increased steadily during the last 25 years. Encarsia and Eretmocerus have a worldwide distribution and importance, and papers have been published in a wide variety of regional, national, and international reports, journal series, or books and thesis in several languages. It appears that these information are unavailable to all researchers specially taxonomists because problems with synonyms and homonyms are still quite frequent.

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