Trichogramma

Trichogramma are minute polyphagous wasps that are endoparasitoids of insect eggs. Trichogramma is one of around 80 genera from the family Trichogrammatidae, with over 200 species worldwide.

Although there are several groups of egg parasitoids commonly employed for biological control throughout the world, Trichogramma have been the most extensively studied. There have been more than a thousand papers published on Trichogramma and they are the most used biological control agents in the world. Trichogramma are unique to the size limit of how small an insect can be, which would be determined by how few neurons they can fit in their central nervous system, yet exhibit a complex behavior to sustain their life. Trichogramma have less than 10,000 neurons, which is a hundred times fewer than the next smallest insect.