Morphological characters

1.3-2.7 mm.
Apterous: greenish yellow, on abdomen hind-areas bear dark straight spots arranged on each side of medial line.
Alate: pale green to dark green, antennae long and black, abdomen with specks or stripes, cornicles straight and dark, cauda black, articulations of legs black.

See identification file

Life cycles

Dioecious holocyclic

Host plants

Primary hosts: Ribes spp (like redcurrant, blackcurrant).
Secondary hosts: Asteraceae: Lactuca (lettuce), Chicorium (chicory and endive), Solanaceae: Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco), Petunia (petunia) and Scrophulariaceae: Euphrasia (eyebright), Veronica (speedwell).

Particular characteristics

N. ribisnigri is the dominant species in open field crops of lettuce
This species manifests signs of resistance to insecticides.

Agronomic impact

N. ribisnigri does not cause significant direct damage: hardly any colour change to leaves and just slight deformation with margins undulating. Conversely the indirect damage due to the serious tainting produced makes harvests unmarketable.
It transmits the cauliflower mosaic (CaMV) and cucumber mosaic viruses (CMV) but not that of lettuce mosaic (LMV), or very little.

Natural enemies

Parasitoids :

• Aphidius hieraciorum
• Harkeria angustivalva
• Monoctonus crepidis
• Praon pubescens