The most important point for the success or failure of biological control is the correct identification of the pest or the natural enemy especially when either the pest or the natural enemy has closely related species that are often morphologically indistinguishable differing only in their behavior and physiology. In the current, the ITS sequences (Internal Transcribed Spacer) of two parasitoid species; Chelonus blackburni Cameron and Apanteles angaleti Mueseback were amplified using PCR.
The ITS region of rDNA of both parasitoids C. blackburni and A. angaleti were sequenced. The ITS sequences were 818 nt and 848 nt in length for C. blackburni and A. angaleti, respectively. The complete sequence of ITS region in both species have been submitted to the GenBank (Bank kit assigned accession No. EU938531 for C. blackburni and EU938530 for A. angaleti). Comparison of the sequences with those of other genera of the same family from BLASTN showed that some part of the ITS sequence was conserved and distinct at species and genus levels. The aligned sequences of the ITS region of C. blackburni and A. angaleti showed maximum matching between two species but some gap between sequences are assumed to be due to diverged from evolution time . The results showed that this technique is a good tool to identify braconid parasitoid species, otherwise difficult to identify when using only morphological characters.