Exploration of egg parasitoids was conducted by collecting host eggs from soybean, vegetable crops, peas, corn and rice fields in West Sumatra. We found six species Telenomus distributed throughout studied locations in West Sumatera. Four species have been identified, namely T. remus Nix., T. rowani Gah., T. dignus Gah., T. dignoides Nix., whereas two others have not been identified yet because there is no appropriate identification key. The results showed that the both T. rowani Gah. and T. dignus Gah were distributed in all studied locations with different individual number, but they could be potentially be used as biocontrol agents in the future. The highest numbers of species was found in Tanah Datar and Solok with different abundance, whereas the lowest number of species were in Agam and Lima Puluh Kota.

Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to determine the differences of four Telenomus species and five populations of T. rowani from several locations in Java. Amplification of genomic DNA by using primer P2 (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech) indicated that each Telenomus species had a unique set of RAPD bands. Two bands which characterized the genus are estimated to be 300 and 430 bp. Each species had three specific bright bands except T. dignoides which only had two specific bright bands. However, no bands are unique to any of the five populations of T. rowani and all of the bands are less than 500 base-pair. Cluster analysis using UPGMA (Unweighed Pair Group Method With Arithmatic Mean) showed that the four Telenomus species consist of two groups, T. rowani and T. remus in one cluster and T. dignus with T. dignoides belonging to another cluster.