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A previous investigation from our laboratory showed that the odor of live green peach aphids,Myzus persicae(Sulzer), highly attracts the convergent lady beetle,Hippodamia convergensGuérin-Méneville. In this study, we isolated the odor and identified it as (E)-β-farnesene (an aphid alarm pheromone) using gas chromatography – mass spectrometry. The olfactory response of the convergent lady beetle to (E)-β-farnesene was investigated using an eight-arm air-flow olfactometer and tracing the pathways of the lady beetles. The results clearly indicate thatH.convergenscan perceive and orient to (E)-β-farnesene released by green peach aphids. These findings suggest that this species of lady beetle has evolved a sensory system for detecting the green peach aphid alarm pheromone as a means of finding its prey.
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Acar et al. (2001) studied this question.
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