Biology and mating behavior of coconut moth

What is it about?

The coconut moth, Atheloca subrufella, is responsible for most of the flower and fruit shedding in coconut cropping systems. Despite this, little is known with regard to its biology and behavior. In order to understand its biology, the duration and viability of the egg, larval, and pupal stages, number of instars, pupal weight of males and females, sex ratio, adult longevity, and fecundity were determined. In the mating behavior study, observations included mating time and duration. Duration and viability of the egg, larval, and pupal stages were 3.0 and 93.0, 14.3 and 85.0, and 11.2 d and 91.0%, respectively, totaling 28.5 d (egg-adult) with 72.0% viability. There were four instars, with head capsule means of 0.27, 0.45, 0.80, and 1.33 mm for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th instars, respectively. The sex ratio was 0.55, and the mean pupal weight was 22.2 mg for males and 25.2 mg for females. The pre-oviposition, oviposition, and post-oviposition periods averaged 2.4, 7.5, and 5.5 d, respectively. The longevity of males and females was 17.5 and 15.2 d, with a mean fecundity of 216 eggs. With regard to mating behavior, 91.0 and 9.0% of the tested pairs mated on the first and second day of adult life, respectively. Mating always began between 1900 and 2300 h, corresponding to an interval between 45 and 285 min after dusk, with a mean mating duration of 95 min.

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