Rice Insect Pests and their Arthropod Parasites and Predators

The proper identification of insect pests, and their associated natural enemies, is an important component in developing a holistic system for managing rice insect pests. To assist national rice research programs in the identification of specimens in their rice arthropod collections, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Philippines conducted an international collection program to establish a comprehensive rice insect pest and natural enemy collection.

The key has a global coverage, it is more complete for Asia than for other rice-growing continents as it was based on specimens in the IRRI reference collection and literature available to the authors. This is the only key that includes all the major insect orders and spiders in the global rice ecosystems. The key includes 12 insect orders: Coleoptera, Dermaptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Isoptera, Lepidoptera, Neuroptera, Odonata, Orthoptera, Strepsiptera, and Thysanoptera. The spider order, Araneae, consists of 11 families: Araneidae, Gnaphosidae, Hahnidae, Linyphiidae, Metidae, Pisauridae, Salticidae, Tetragnathidae, Theridiidae, Theridiosomatidae and Thomisidae.

While the printed versions of both books have been out-of-print for several years, a recent upgrade of the Lucid software program, which makes it possible to convert paper-based, dichotomous keys to interactive pathway keys, means that both keys are now freely available to use on the Internet, courtesy of IAPPS.

Adding arthropod images: Note that the IRRI key now includes a large number of images of important insect pests and natural enemies. E.A. Heinrichs ([email protected]) would appreciate any good resolution images that colleagues would be willing to submit for adding to the key – with due acknowledgement.