First Report on Loew (Diptera: Phoridae) Infestation of the Invasive Pest Smith (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in China.

The invasive pest first emerged in China in January 2019 and has, to date, migrated to 29 provinces and municipalities in China, causing heavy crop damage in large areas. As a response to this invasive species from the environment, some indigenous natural enemies have been discovered and reported after invasion. In this paper, parasitic flies were collected and identified from collected in the Yunnan, Guangxi, and Henan provinces and the Chongqing municipality in China. By using both conventional and molecular approaches, we were able to show that all the parasitic flies of identified in the four regions were and that they attacked the pest larvae and pupae. This is the first report on an indigenous Chinese species that has parasitic ability against the invasive pest , potentially providing new ideas for pest control in China.