Blue card containing tiny trichogramma wasps, which search for and parasitise moth eggs.
Image: Luke Simpkin
Source: Museum Victoria
Pest management in the Forest Gallery is necessary to keep it green and healthy, however we must be careful as everything we do affects the other animals living there.
Visitors to the gallery may have noticed small blue cards stapled to leaves in the gallery. These contain tiny parasitic wasps, Trichogramma pretiosum, whose mission is to search for and parasitise moth eggs.
Tiny predatory mites, Phtyoseiulus persimilis, are also released to feed on the foliage-damaging two-spotted mites while Green Lacewings, Mallada signata, are released to kill various insect pests, including the ever-present Greenhouse Thrips.
The relatively warm and semi-enclosed environment of the Forest Gallery creates ideal conditions for various insect pests, so the battle will continue as long as the Forest Gallery exists.
By employing bugs in the battle, we can be specific, safe and responsive to pest populations over the long term. And the empty blue wasp cards are in demand from the male Satin Bower Bird; he collects them to decorate his bower!