**2.4 Diversity of fall armyworm parasitoids**

From ten years to date in Durango, Mexico, studies have been carried out that have made it possible to know the taxonomic diversity of parasitoids of FAW of the families: Ichneumonidae (*Pristomerus spinator* Fabricius, *Campoletis sonorensis* Cameron) [25], Encyrtidae (*Euplectrus plathypenae* Howard), Tachinidae (*Lespesia aletiae* Riley, *L. archippivora* Riley, *Winthemia deilephilae* Osten Sacken, y *Archytas marmoratus* Townsend) [26], Trichogrammatidae (*Trichogramma pretiosum* Riley y *Trichogramma exiguum* Pinto y Platner) and Scelionidae (*Telenomus remus* Nixon) [27], and of the family Braconidae subfamily Homolobinae (*Homolobus truncator* Say) [28], from this same family *Ch. insularis*, *Ch. sonorensis*, *Microchelonus cautus* [29], *M. laphygmae* y *M. arizonensis* [30] the genetic part has also been studied [31, 32].

In the Mexican Republic, the Braconidae family has been studied, even so, there are states where the species are still unknown. **Table 1** shows their distribution in the country.


*Genetic Delimitation of Fall Armyworm Parasitoids Isolated in Maize in Durango, Mexico DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112612*


#### **Table 1.**

*Diversity of parasitoids of the Braconidae family in Mexico.*

#### **2.5 Braconidae family**

#### *2.5.1 Meteorinae Subfamily*

The genus *Meteorus* Haliday (Braconidae: Euphorinae, Meteorini) has 326 globally recorded species from the Nearctic, Neotropical, Palearctic, Oriental, Afrotropical, and Oceanic regions [36, 46]. *Meteorus* is a cosmopolitan genus of koinobiont endoparasitoids of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera [47, 48]; *Meteorus* is a paraphyletic group and its rearrangement into several monophyletic genera is pending [47]. The mature larvae of some species spin a cocoon suspended by a thread, and it is from this habit that the name of the genus is derived [36].

#### *2.5.2 Cheloninae Subfamily*

Cheloninae Förster is a moderately large subfamily within the family Braconidae. The subfamily comprises more than 1500 described species in the world. Members of this subfamily are present in almost all geographic regions [29, 49].

#### **2.6 Mexico distribution**

#### *2.6.1 Chelonus*

In 1995, for Guanajuato (state in the center of the country) the genera *Ascogaster*, *Chelonus,* and *Phanerotoma* of the subfamily Cheloninae were reported. Over the years, studies on the taxonomy of this genus have increased and more is known about its diversity.

For Mexico, it has been reported to *Chelonus busckiella* Viereck, 1912; *Ch. davinervis* Cameron, 1904; *Ch. insulares* Cresson, 1865; *Ch. mexicanus* Brètes, 1927; *Ch. quadrimaculatus* Cameron, 1887; *Ch. sericeus* Say, 1824, *Ch. sonorensis* Cameron, 1887; *Microhelonus blackburni* Cameron, 1886; *Microchelonus cautus* (Cresson, 1872), *M. heliopae* Gupta, 1955; *M. pectinophorae* Cushman, 1931 y *M. phrhorimaeae* Gahan, 1917 [9].

In the state of Durango, Mexico, it has been reported to *Chelonus insulares*, *Ch. sonorensis* y *Ch. cautus* (= *Microchelonus*); however, based on the coloration patterns in the metasoma (irregular spots), eight morphotypes were found that did not match the taxonomic keys of [50–52]; therefore, its molecular identification was necessary; in this regard, [53] identified seven species of fall armyworm parasitoids, including *Ch. insularis* (isolates from Colima, Jalisco), *Ch. cautus* (Colima, Puebla, Nayarit) and *M. laphygmae* (Puebla, Colima)., using polymerase chain reaction amplification and restriction enzyme digestion, this enables the precise determination of the species of those parasitoids larvae that are usually not morphologically identifiable, where they appeared equal size amplification of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 fragment was obtained for all seven species. It is also recommended to carry out genitalia or morphometry studies.
