ABSTRACT
Insects that are reared on artificial diets are used in many programs: as agents of biological control and sterile insect technologies (Knipling, 1979), as feed for other animals (Versoi and French, 1992), as bioreactors for production of pharmaceuticals and other recombinant proteins (Hughes and Wood, 1998), as food for people (DeFoliart, 1999). One of their most important uses is in research on virtually all areas of entomology and of other biological sciences. Thousands of papers written over the past century deal with artificial diets for insects. Although the focus of most of these papers is a subject other than artificial diets, it is evident that high-quality insects are essential to the assurance of meaningful studies, and that the quality of the insect diets is, in turn, essential to the maintenance of healthy laboratory insects.
