Tea Mosquito Bug
Helopeltis antonii and related species
A small, mosquito-like sucking bug that is one of the most damaging pests of cashew, and of tea, cocoa, and many tropical crops. Both young and adult bugs pierce tender shoots, flower panicles, and young nuts, and their toxic saliva scorches the growth, giving a heavily attacked tree a burnt, blighted look.
🔎 How to spot it
Adults are slender, long-legged bugs a few millimeters long with a narrow waist and a distinctive knob on a slim spine rising from the back, looking much like a mosquito; bodies are often reddish-brown to black with an orange or red thorax. The wingless nymphs are smaller and pale. Both are quick to dart to the far side of a shoot when disturbed.
🥀 Damage it causes
Feeding punctures on tender shoots, leaves, flower panicles, and developing nuts ooze and dry into dark, sunken, scab-like lesions. Attacked shoots and flower panicles blacken and die back, flowers and young nuts drop, and a badly hit tree looks scorched, a condition known as shoot or blossom blight. Yield losses of 30 to 50 percent or more are common where it is left unchecked.
🛡️ Prevent it
Keep trees open through pruning so the canopy is airy and easier to monitor and spray, and remove and destroy infested shoots, fallen flowers, and damaged nuts that harbor the pest. Watch new flushes, flowering, and fruiting closely, since these tender stages are when the bug attacks, and conserve natural enemies such as egg parasitoids and spiders.
🧯 If it is already here
Target the vulnerable stages, treating at new flushing and again at flowering and early fruiting when monitoring shows the bug is active. Where infestations are heavy, recommended insecticides include lambda-cyhalothrin or imidacloprid timed to those stages, and biopesticides based on the fungi Beauveria bassiana or Metarhizium anisopliae give some control while sparing beneficials.
💡 Good to know
The bug is most active in cool, humid mornings and evenings and hides during the heat of the day, so scout early. Because it moves in from surrounding vegetation, area-wide and well-timed action during flushing and flowering works far better than spraying after the damage shows.
🌱 Plants it attacks
4 plants in the library can be attacked by this pest
For educational and informational purposes only. Pest control advice is general guidance drawn from university cooperative extension sources; always identify a pest positively and read and follow the label on any product before use, especially around food crops, children, and pets.