SLWF Natural Mortality – Fungal?

In the last 10-14 days several of you have called about dead adult silverleaf whitefly adults in cotton.  Many of these observations have been in untreated fields.  We are not 100 percent of the causal agent but we suspect the mortality to be due to an entomopathogenic fungi.  We have forwarded samples of these dead whiteflies to persons with expertise on entomopathogenic fungal identification.  We have also seen some sporulation on immatures.  To date we are not aware of any field where the population has completely crashed, just be thankful there is some natural mortality.  Keep scouting and be timely when insecticides are needed.  The photo below is an example of dead sdult SLWF in untreated cotton.