Reproductive rhythms of the tobacco cutworm, Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae).

Cong Li; Jin-Feng Yu; Jin Xu; Jian-Hong Liu; Hui Ye

The tobacco cutworm, Spodoptera litura is a serious polyphagous pest. The laboratory investigations of lifespan reproductive patterns described in this paper have shown that all adult activities took place during the scotophase. After emergence, calling, courtship and mating events increased with time and peaked in the second night. Mating peak were always following the calling and courtship peaks. Most paired insects performed the first mating within the 2nd day after emergence and peaked at midnight while remating peaked at dawn. Paired insects could mate up to 4 times, with an average of 1.9 ± 0.4 matings. Females started to lay eggs a few hours (≥3h) after the first mating (these eggs are fertilized and hatched) and oviposition peaked in the 3rd night after emergence. Dissection of dead females showed the number of spermatophores in female bursa copulatrix was equal to the number of matings observed.

SPODOPTERA littoralis; CUTWORMS; REPRODUCTION; ANIMAL sexual behavior; OVIPARITY; CIRCADIAN rhythms

GSTF Journal of BioSciences, 2012, Vol 2, Issue 1, p25

2251-3140

Academic Journal

10.5176/2251-3140_2.1.18