The National Service of Agrifood Health, Safety and Quality (Servicio Nacional de Sanidad, Inocuidad y Calidad Agroalimentaria), through the General Directorate of Plant Health (Dirección General de Sanidad Vegetal) has the mission of preserving the health of agri-food plants in our country. One of its objectives is to establish phytosanitary measures with the purpose of mitigating the effect of the different pests that affect our agriculture; for this, among other activities, it promotes the use of beneficial organisms as agents of biological control for pest control, an activity that is carried out through the National Center of Biological Control Reference (Centro Nacional de Referencia de Control Biológico, CNRCB). Among the functions of the CNRCB is the promotion and establishment of specialized biological reference collections, so it has inventories of beneficial organisms that make up an Entomophagous Insect Collection.

The Entomophagous Insect Collection (Colección de Insctos Entomófagos, CIE) of the CNRCB began operations in September 2012. The CIE consists mainly of beneficial insects (natural enemies) for the agricultural industry. This collection is focused on taxonomic identification through morphological and molecular tools of the main natural enemies of pests, as well as their prey, hosts, distribution and host plants; in order to have the necessary tools in case of a phytosanitary problem in the country. In the case of molecular analyzes, the CIE-CNRCB has the support of the Molecular Biology Laboratory (LBM) of the CNRCB for the identification of specimens; in this way, not only the specific determination is made by traditional methods but the sequencing of different regions of DNA is involved. This information supports the development of technological packages for the biological control of pests, as well as offering duly identified insects to be used as reference or consultation material for researchers, technicians, students and producers.

The CIE-CNRCB currently protects about 80,000 specimens, collected from 20 states in the country (Baja California Norte, Coahuila, Colima, Chihuahua, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas); It has specimens of 13 types of agroecosystems, including avocado, coffee, cane, tomato, Mexican lemon, corn, mango, orange, cactus nopal, coconut palm, sorghum, leaf tomato and blackberry.

The purpose of this database is to make available to researchers, professors, students, technicians and producers the information generated by the CIE, mainly the species determined there, which will be accompanied by reference photographs, emphasizing the diagnostic characteristics of each of them, with the intention of facilitating the recognition of them by the users of this database.

The personal of the CNRCB would like to thank The National Phytosanitary Advisory Council (CONACOFI) for its invaluable support in the realization of this database.