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Notes on Insect Pests in Antigua*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

H. A. Ballou
H. A. Ballou
Affiliation:
Entomologist to the Imperial Department of Agriculture, British West Indies.
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Extract

The principal object of my visit to Antigua, during December 1912, was to study an outbreak of the twig borer of limes which had been reported by the Superintendent of Agriculture from two localities in the island.

At the time of my visit, owing to recent pruning, there were only occasionally infested branches to be seen, but these were in sufficient number to enable me to form a very good opinion of the nature of the attack and of the general habits of the insect.

The attack on a lime branch apparently always begins on a small twig. I am not able to say whether the twig on or in which the egg is laid is dead or dying at the time of egg-laying ; but in every instance of attack observed by me, both in the field and in specimens forwarded, the twig has been found entirely eaten out, the dead interior connecting with the tunnel in the larger branch from which the twig springs. This branch is always more or less girdled by the tunnel of the grub. The girdling seems to be the first thing done by the grub after completing the destruction of the smaller twig and it results in the death of the branch beyond the point of the girdle. The tunnel does not circle the twig in such a manner as to cut it off completely, but the direction is rather in a spiral, so that as the injury to the branch becomes more and more felt, it breaks down and is usually left hanging. The entire grub and pupa stages are passed within this branch, the adult beetle only issuing from the dead branch some time after emerging from its pupal condition.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , May 1913 , pp. 61 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1913

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References

† [Specimens of this insect have been forwarded for identification by Dr. Francis Watts ; it proves to be Elaphidion mite, Newman, a Longicorn of the family Cerambycidae. The species has also been recorded from St. Thomas, St. Bartholomew, St. Kitts, Guadeloupe and Brazil.—Ed.]

* [Probably Precis lavinia zonalis, Feld., the only species of the genus known as yet from Antigua. The larvae of another Nymphalid butterfly (Acraea terpsichore, L.) have been recorded by Mr. C. C. Gowdey as damaging sweet potatoes in Uganda.—Ed.]