Research Notes

Abstract

Mention has been made in the previous publications on the top shoot borer of cane about the presence of two species of Scirpophaga in South India.at any rate.in the Madras Presidency. These are S.monostigma and S.auriflua(S.xanthogastralla. S.intacta.S.nivella)the former with a black spot on each of the forewings and the latter without spots.In our recent studies of the pest it was found difficult to distinguish the larval and pupal stages of the two months and this led us to suspect that there may be only one species after all.The caterpillars batching out of the eggs laid by the two moths were therefore reared sparately in pot plants inside wire gauze cages.It was found that both the potted and spotless forms were got from the progeny of either.It was also observed that there wer graduations even in the size of the black spots.Some moths had prominent spots with about 100-150 black scales while others had very few such scales.So it looks as if there is only one species of Scirpophaaga.Detailed studies including the examination of the genetalia of moths and rearings of larger number of caterpillars are in progress to confirm the results already obtained.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.002310

Pages

244 - 245

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

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