Abstract: The bamboo wireworm Melanotus cribricollis is a devastating pest of underground bamboo shoots in southern China. To explore an alternative control strategy with fungal biocontrol agents, the authors bioassayed the virulence of three Metarhizium strains against Melanotus cribricollis larvae (120-150 mg per capita) in small cups filled with 50 g soil containing 5×106 conidia per gram of soil. The application of the stains Metarhizium pingshaense WP08 and Metarhizium anisopliae 30104 resulted in the corrected mortalities of 90.0% and 66.3% during a 30-day period under controlled conditions, respectively, whereas Metarhizium anisopliae LRC112 showed no lethal effect on the larvae. Time-mortality analysis led to the median lethal time (LT50) estimates of 15.8 and 25.8 days for the two virulent strains. The high-virulence strain Metarhizium pingshaense WP08 was further assayed for its lethal effect on the larvae in contact of conidia mixed with corn bait and soil respectively. As a result, the soil mixture caused higher mortality (60.1%) and shorter LT50 (22.6 days) than the bait mixture (52.0%; 28.0 days).