In vitro rearing of Eucelatoria bryani: improvements and evaluation of factors affecting efficiency

In vitro rearing of Eucelatoria bryani Sabrosky (Diptera: Tachinidae) was made more efficient and economical. Absorbent cotton, used as a support to replace more expensive agar in an artificial medium, produced yields of adults equal to those reared on the agar-based medium. The weights of pupae from the cotton-supported medium were about 16% lighter than were the weights of pupae from the agar-based medium. Evaluation of diet volumes (100, 200 and 250 l) for individually reared flies revealed that highest adult yields (46.3%) were obtained when 200 l per maggot of agar-based diet were used in each well of microtiter plates; this is equivalent to 2,315 adults per liter of diet. The tachinids were small and the sizes were equal to those obtained when 10–15 maggots parasitize a single host. Costs could not be reduced by deleting free amino acids from the medium fed to older maggots because free amino acids are essential dietary ingredients for third instars of E. bryani.