Experimental studies of the host-finding behavior of Trogus pennator, a parasitoid of swallowtail butterflies.

The parasitic wasp Troguspennator (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) attacks larvae in two genera of Papilionidae, Eurytides and Papilio, on plants in a variety of families. The female wasps' responses to food plants, feeding damage, and frass were examined in a series of experiments designed to test the hypothesis that parasitic wasps that specialize on host taxa and seek their hosts in a variety of habitats exhibit fixed responses to host-derived cues and more flexible responses to cues associated only with the hosts' food plants. Naive T pennator females showed no preferences when offered either a choice between two papilionid food plants or a choice between a food plant and a plant not used for food by Papilionidae. After experience with hosts in the presence of a particular food plant, however, wasps preferred that plant. Naive wasps did prefer plants damaged by host larvae over plants damaged by nonhost (saturniid) larvae and also preferred methylene chloride extracts of host frass over extracts of frass from saturniid larvae fed on the same plant species, results indicating that the responses of T. pennator females to host-derived cues are innate. The chemical compositions of the extracts of frass from several papilionid and one saturniid species were also examined, and the significance of the finding that no host-specific patterns were detected among the major components of the extracts is discussed.