They can be used in a variety of cultivated crops, and is perhaps under utilized for biocontrol of a variety of cropping systems. Aphidoletes adults are not strong flyers, so they fly during the night when the air is calm. Females deposit 150-200 eggs on leaves adjacent to aphid colonies. The eggs are oval and shiny orange-red. The developing larvae will be orange colored, but may be brownish or grayish depending upon stomach contents.
Larval stages are maggots which crawl on the leaf surface in search of aphid prey.
Larvae may consume 3-50 aphids per day. Total generation time from egg to adult takes nearly 3-5 weeks. Only the larval stage is predaceous. It feeds by biting aphids in the legs and paralizing them with a toxin before sucking out the aphid body fluids. If aphid populations are high, Aphidoletes will kill more aphids that they actually consume.