The genus Diparopsis Hmps. is confined to Africa. During the present century, an insect always identified hitherto as Diparopsis castanea Hmps. has become a serious pest as a bollworm of cotton in many parts of that continent. Until recently, the genus was thought to consist of only two species, D. castanea Hmps. and D. tephragramma B.-Bkr., but differences in the structure of the frontal process of the adult suggested that the former comprised two or more distinct sub-species or species. The present study was undertaken to determine the status of these different forms. It is based on the material in the collections of the British Museum (Natural History) and on additional material obtained through the courtesy of the Government Entomologist, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology.

The following notes deal with the Agaonidae represented in a small collection of fig insects formed in 1907–8, in Sarawak, by Mr. J. Hewitt, now Director of the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, South Africa.

Much progress has been made in understanding the environmental and hormonal systems regulating winter diapause. However, transcriptional regulation of summer diapause is still largely unknown, making it difficult to understand an all-around regulation profile of seasonal adaptation. To bridge this gap, comparison RNA-seq to profile the transcriptome and to examine differential gene expression profiles between non-diapause, summer diapause, and winter diapause groups were performed. A total number of 113 million reads were generated and assembled into 79,117 unigenes, with 37,492 unigenes categorized into 58 functional gene ontology groups, 25 clusters of orthologous group categories, and 256 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways. KEGG analysis mapped 2108 differentially expressed genes to 48 and 67 pathways for summer and winter diapauses, respectively. Enrichment statistics showed that 11 identical pathways similarly overlapped in the top 20 enriched functional groups both related to summer and winter diapauses. We also identified 35 key candidate genes for universal and differential functions related to summer and winter diapause preparation. Furthermore, we identified some genes involved in the signaling and metabolic pathways that may be the key drivers to integrate environmental signals into the summer and winter diapause preparation. The current study provided valuable insights into global molecular mechanisms underpinning diapause preparation.

The genus Niponius has hitherto been studied only from the standpoint of the adult characters, the larva having been unknown. These characters were considered by Fowler (Fauna of British India, Coleoptera, General Introduction 1912, p. 93) probably to be worthy of family rank; to quote Fowler “The very curious genus Niponius is closely related to the Histeridae, to which family it was assigned by its discoverer, Mr. G. Lewis, but it also bears affinities to other families, and is in several ways abnormal; we have therefore regarded it, with some hesitation, as provisionally separate.” The structure of the male genital tube was studied by Sharp & Muir (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1912, p. 512) and they remark (l.c. p. 513) “The four families Histeridae, Synteliidae, Sphaeritidae and Niponiidae are so closely related by the aedeagus, that they might form one family, in which the Histeridae would include the higher developments.”

The earliest reference to the occurrence of Helopeltis in Ceylon was made by the French entomologist, Signoret (1858), when he described Helopeltis antonii, the so-called “Mosquito Blight”. Helopeltis attacking cacao in Ceylon was first recorded in the year 1880 or 1881 in the Matale district (Green, 1901), the damage to the young leaves and stems having attracted the attention of cacao planters. Populations of Helopeltis occurring on cacao today, however, favour the pods, damage to young leaves and stems being relatively rare and generally associated with poor shade over the cacao plant. This apparent change of feeding habits prompted a careful and critical examination of the existing species of Helopeltis in Ceylon. Extensive collections of Helopeltis from the major cacao-growing areas in the island, including the Matale district, have not provided any specimens referable to Helopeltis antonii. The new species described below was the only species of Helopeltis found on cacao at Teldeniya, Kundasale and in the Matale district, which may be regarded as representative of the major cacao-growing areas of Ceylon.

The turnover of the radioisotope 137Cs is shown to be of a one-component nature and to be positively correlated with temperature for males of both Glossina morsitans Westw. and G. pallidipes Aust. A direct correlation with oxygen consumption is also demonstrated, and the relation for both species may be described by the same regression line. The feasibility of using 137Cs as a metabolic label for tsetse is therefore confirmed, and it is suggested that the predictive nature of the relationship between radioisotope turnover and metabolism may extend beyond closely related species.

We studied the occurrence, morphology and phenology of Dendroctonus micans in Lithuania and the fungi associated with the beetle at different developmental stages. The occurrence of D. micans was assessed in 19 seed orchards (at least 40 years old) of Picea abies (L. Karst.) situated in different parts of the country. Bark beetle phenology was studied in two sites: a seed orchard of P. abies and a plantation of Picea pungens (Engelm.). D. micans morphology was assessed under the dissection microscope using individuals at different developmental stages that were sampled during phenology observations. Communities of fungi associated with D. micans were studied using both fungal culturing methods and direct high-throughput sequencing from D. micans. Results showed that the incidence D. micans was relatively rare and D. micans was mainly detected in central and eastern Lithuania. The life cycle included the following stages: adult, egg, I–V developmental stage larvae and pupa. However, development of D. micans was quicker and its nests larger under the bark of P. pungens than of P. abies, indicating the effect of the host species. Fungal culturing and direct high-throughput sequencing revealed that D. micans associated fungi communities were species rich and dominated by yeasts from a class Saccharomycetes. In total, 319 fungal taxa were sequenced, among which Peterozyma toletana (37.5% of all fungal sequences), Yamadazyma scolyti (30.0%) and Kuraishia capsulate (17.7%) were the most common. Plant pathogens and blue stain fungi were also detected suggesting their potentially negative effects to both tree health and timber quality.

Colour piceous black ; the head with dark brown scaling above, except for a line of pale scales bordering the eye, and with pale buff scales beneath ; scaling of the prothorax brown or grey brown on the disk, an ill-defined dark brown stripe at the side, and grey or buff beneath ; scaling on the elytra grey or brown, with a very ill-defined darker stripe between striae 2 and 5, usually vanishing at a short distance from the base, but often traceable to behind the middle in the form of spots.

The bionomics and ecology of two Adelgids, Adelges knucheli (Schneider-Orelli & Schneider) and A. joshii (Schneider-Orelli & Schneider), first recorded from West Pakistan by Yaseen & Ghani (1966), have been studied by Ghani & Rao (1966). During surveys for the natural enemies of Adelgids in West Pakistan forests, another Adelges sp. on fir and three Pineus spp. on pines were found. They differed from described species in shape, size and arrangement of the wax pores on the sclerotised plates of the head and thorax, characters considered by Underwood (1963) the best for identifying apterous Adelgid adults. They are here described as new, and notes are given on their biologies seen in marked colonies under field conditions. All four species are monomorphic and anholocyclic.

Mean survival times for unfed ticks, Rhipicephalus appendiculatus Neumann exposed initially during the hot dry season (January) in Kenya were significantly higher than those of ticks exposed during the wet season (May). This was partly due to the timing of the next hot dry season which triggered the beginning of decline in survival, and partly due to the overall severity of the weather. The implication is that the time when the ticks feed affects the survival of the subsequent instar. The mean survival times for nymphs exposed initially during the wet and the hot dry seasons were 30 weeks and 44 weeks, respectively. Those for adult ticks ranged between 59–75 weeks and 62–79 weeks, respectively. Maximum survival times were, however, similar for adults but not for nymphs. Adult ticks had an initial period of 32–48 weeks of excellent survival, apparently independent of weather factors. Thereafter, mortality rates and adverse environmental factors were correlated. The survival of ticks fed on hosts of differing resistance status was also different. The most resistant host produced the smallest adult ticks and these gave the lowest survival, and vice versa. Male and female ticks from highly resistant hosts had similar survival, but the females from a moderately resistant host survived significantly better than the males. These results indicate the importance of weather and host resistance in R. appendiculatus survival.

British Guiana lies between the latitudes 0·41′ N. (source of the Essequebo River) and 8° 33′ 22″ N. (Punta Playa), has a depth from north to south of about 500 miles, a seaboard of about 270 miles trending in a south-easterly direction, and occupies in the north-east of South America an area approximately equal in extent to Great Britain. It is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by Surinam or Dutch Guiana, on the south and south-west by Brazil, and on the west by Venezuela.

The Colony may be divided broadly into three belts. The northern one consists of a low-lying flat and swampy belt of marine alluvium—the coastal region. This rises gradually from the seaboard and extends inland for a distance varying from 5 to 49 miles. It is succeeded by a broader and slightly elevated tract of country of sandy and clayey soils. This belt is generally undulating, and is traversed in places by sand-dunes rising from 50 to 180 ft. above sea-level. The more elevated portion of the Colony lies to the southward of the above-mentioned regions. It rises gradually to the south-west, between the river valleys, which are in many parts swampy, and contains three principal mountain ranges, several irregularly distributed smaller ranges, and in the southern and eastern parts numerous isolated hills and mountains. The eastern portion is almost entirely forest-clad, but on the south-western side there is an extensive area of flat grass-clad savannah land elevated about 300 feet above sea-level.

Energy homeostasis is essential for organisms to maintain fluctuation in energy accumulation, mobilization. Lipids as the main energy reserve in insects, their metabolism is under the control of many physiological program. This study aimed to determine whether the adipokinetic hormone receptor (AKHR) was involved in the lipid mobilization in the Spodoptera litura. A full-length cDNA encoding AKHR was isolated from S. litura. The SlAKHR protein has a conserved seven-transmembrane domain which is the character of a putative G protein receptor. Expression profile investigation revealed that SlAKHR mRNA was highly expressed in immatural stage and abundant in fat body in newly emerged female adults. Knockdown of SlAKHR expression was achieved through RNAi by injecting double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) into the 6th instar larvae. The content of triacylgycerol (TAG) in the fat body increased significantly after the SlAKHR gene was knockdown. And decrease of TAG releasing to hemolymph with increase of free fatty acid (FFA) in hemolymph were observed when the SlAKHR gene was knowned-down. In addition, lipid droplets increased in fat body was also found. These results suggested that SlAKHR is critical for insects to regulate lipids metabolism.

Sampling flower-visiting insects in agricultural fields at large spatial and temporal scales is significant for understanding local insect pollinator communities. The most commonly used method, pan trap, has been criticized due to its attractant bias. A window trap (also referred to as the flight-intercept trap) is a non-attractant sampling method, which has been applied in forests and grasslands, but rarely in agricultural fields. We aim to test whether we can replace pan traps with window traps in agricultural fields by comparing species richness and species composition between the two methods, and to show whether flower-visiting insects collected in both traps can reflect flower-visiting activity recorded by camera observation. We conducted a 2-year study to compare the performance of these sampling methods in an oilseed rape field. Results showed that the relative abundance of dominant flower-visiting species was highly correlated between the window trap and the pan trap samples, while window traps caught more individuals and higher (rarefied) species richness than pan traps. The species composition of window traps was more similar to each other than that of pan traps. The proportion of honey bees (Apis spp.) collected in both traps underestimated their flower-visiting activity recorded by camera observations, while sweat bees (Halictidae) and butterflies (Lepidoptera) were overestimated. Our study suggests that the window trap has the potential to serve as an alternative sampling method of flower-visiting insects to the pan trap. However, we need to be cautious when using specimens caught in both traps as a proxy of their flower-visiting activity.

Field enclosure and laboratory cage experiments designed to measure the impact of the parasitoid Microctonus hyperodae Loan on the Argentine stem weevil, Listronotus bonariensis (Kuschel) have shown that under high parasitoid pressure, there is significant weevil mortality without obvious parasitism. Parasitoid-exposed, but unparasitized portions of caged populations died at rates significantly higher than both the parasitized weevils from the same population and the unexposed controls. Unexpectedly, parasitized weevils had the lowest mortality rates (prior to larval parasitoid emergence). It was of ecological significance that this mortality effect was detected under field conditions using several years of empirically-collected population dynamics data. Under both field and laboratory conditions this mortality was found to occur within shorter time intervals than that required for full parasitoid larval development; thus it could not be attributed to the mortality that occurs after the emergence of prepupal parasitoids. The mechanism for this mortality remains undetermined, although it could possibly be linked to pseudoparasitism.

Regular surveys were carried out from May to July to find out where Jassids live during the cotton close season.

A list of host plants on which Jassids can breed, or feed only as adults, is given; they exhibit preference for certain plants.

The movement of Jassids to cotton was recorded. The initial infestation of cotton is very small but is rapidly built up within the cotton crop. Gardens are shown to be the chief sources of infestation and cotton fields nearest them show larger initial numbers.

Attempts to exterminate Jassids in these gardens by spraying all plants with 0.1 per cent, or 0.5 per cent. DDT emulsion during the summer dead season were not successful. It is thought that reinfestation came from adults which had been present on the tops of Acacia arabica trees and had not been reached by the spray.

An automatic sticky trap for aphids which segregates each day's catch is described. The trap is driven by a mechanical clock which operates for seven days. Each day, a yellow-coloured drum covered with a sticky coated transparent cellulose acetate sheet is automatically exposed and the one for the previous day stored in a holding cylinder.

A comprehensive study on digestive trypsin was undertaken in the larval midgut of Pieris brassicae L. Results of enzymatic compartmentalization showed a significantly higher activity of crude trypsin in the anterior larval midgut rather than posterior-midgut. Using Diethylaminoethyl cellulose fast flow column chromatography a purified trypsin was obtained by specific activity of 21 U mg−1 protein, recovery of 22%, purification fold of 28-fold and molecular weight of 25 kDa. This purified enzyme showed the highest activity at pH 8 and the corresponding temperature of 40°C. However, the specific inhibitors used including 4-(2-Aminoethyl) benzenesulfonyl fluroride hydrochloride, N-p-Tosyl-L-lysine methyl ester hydrochloride and Soybean Trypsin Inhibitor significantly lowered the activity of the purified enzyme in vitro. Moreover, the activity of trypsin and likewise the nutritional indices were significantly altered in the larval midgut feeding upon the leaves treated by 1 mM concentration of each inhibitor in comparison with control. Determination of enzymatic characteristics of insect trypsins is crucial in paving the path for controlling pests by potential natural compounds via transgenic plants.

The Mediterranean corn borer, Sesamia nonagrioides, occurs sympatrically in the northeast of Spain with other lepidopteran pests such as Ostrinia nubilalis and Mythimna unipuncta. In this study, we evaluated the electrophysiological and behavioural response of mated and unmated females and males of S. nonagrioides to their own complete pheromone blend, to its own four components separately, and to the pheromone components of the sympatric species O. nubilalis and M. unipuncta. Results of the electroantennogram recordings revealed that females of S. nonagrioides can detect their own pheromone blend and its individual components. Moreover, our results show that unmated females and males of S. nonagrioides are more sensitive to the female pheromone, showing higher electrophysiological response than the mated females and males. Electroantennogram recordings showed that males and females can detect the major sexual pheromone component of O. nubilalis (Z)-11-tetradecenyl acetate and the minor component of the pheromone of M. unipuncta (Z)-9-hexadecenyl acetate. When the sex pheromone stimulus was presented in the dual-choice assays, gravid females of S. nonagrioides were attracted to both their own complete pheromone blend and one of their own minor pheromone components, (Z)-11-hexadecenal, but the major sexual pheromone component of O. nubilalis acts as a behavioural antagonist to the females.

In laboratory and field trials in the UK, larvae of Pieris rapae (L.) from the UK survived better than larvae from the Mediterranean region on Brussels sprouts, broccoli and field kale. A similar difference, associated with latitude, was found in Australia. The implications of these results are discussed.

A previous research suggests that when subterranean termites locate equivalent food they consume the initial food resource. However, little is known about the movement of foragers among these food sources. For this reason, this study analyzed the feeding behavior of Heterotermes tenuis and Coptotermes gestroi in the presence of equivalent foods. The experimental arenas were composed of a release chamber connected to food chambers. The consumption of each wood block and percentage of the foraging individuals recruited for the food chambers were observed in relation to the total survival rate. The results showed that in the multiple-choice tests, wood block consumptions and the recruitment of individuals did not differ between replicates of each termite species. However, in different tests of tenacity, the chambers with the first food presented higher feeding rates by both H. tenuis and C. gestroi and resulted in a higher recruitment of workers and soldiers. In these conditions, it may be concluded that foragers of either species do not concentrate their efforts on the consumption of only one food resource when they are able to reach multiple cellulosic sources simultaneously. Additionally, the data concerning tenacity tests suggest that there is a chronologic priority of consumption in relation to the discovery of available food sources. Knowledge about the foraging biology of subterranean termites is important for future studies of their feeding behavior, and it is indispensable for improving control strategies.