In insects, storage proteins or hexamerins accumulate apparently to serve as sources of amino acids during metamorphosis and reproduction. Two storage protein-like cDNAs obtained from a cDNA library prepared from fourth instar larvae of the Indianmeal moth (Plodia interpunctella) were cloned and sequenced. The first clone, PinSP1, contained 2431 nucleotides with a 2295 nucleotide open reading f...

Ocneria terebinthina Strg. (Lep.: Lymanteriidae) is a leaf borer pest in pistachio orchard. The toxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki alone and in combination with henna powder was investigated on third larval instar of O. terebinthina under laboratory conditions. Bioassay was carried out using spray technique on pistachio offshoot. Probit analysis of concentration-mortality data was...

Body size and development time are important life history traits because they are often highly correlated with fitness. Although the developmental mechanisms that control growth have been well studied, the mechanisms that control how a species-characteristic body size is achieved remain poorly understood. In insects adult body size is determined by the number of larval molts, the size increment...

Selenium as selenite was added to laboratory cultures of Chironomus riparius. In two sets of cultures, substrate-bound Se concentrations were typically 10(3) times dissolved Se concentrations, while in the other set dissolved Se concentrations were about 10 to 50 times substrate-bound Se concentrations. Body burdens of individual second-, third-, and fourth-instar larvae and eviscerated fourth-...

The number of larval instars of Simulium (Hemicnetha) rubrithorax Lutz (Diptera: Nematocera) was determined using the lateral length of the head capsule. In this study 1,035 larvae, of different sizes, were measured (639 from the state of Roraima and 396 from the state of Minas Gerais). A frequency distribution analysis was carried out on the measurements of the lateral length of the head capsu...

Metaphycus flavus (Howard) (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) is a facultatively gregarious endoparasitoid of soft scales (Hemiptera: Coccidae). When it develops in superparasitised hosts, the larvae often attack and consume brood mates six or more days post oviposition. Under our laboratory conditions (25±1°C and 14 hours of light followed by 18±1°C and ten hours of darkness in 50-70% R.H.), M. flavus ...

Loss-of-function mutations of the dre4 gene of Drosophila melanogaster caused stage-specific developmental arrest, the stages of arrest coinciding with periods of ecdysteroid (molting hormone) regulated development. Nonconditional mutations resulted in the arrest of larval development in the first instar; embryogenesis was not impaired, and mutant larvae were behaviorally normal and long-lived....

There is much evidence to support that Mocis latipes larvae (Guenèe, 1852) are the most dangerous pasture pest and usually cause large environmental losses. However, no studies have been carried out to identify the instars during which this moth causes the most damage to the environment. Here we calculate M. latipes larval energy budget to assess its consumption across all instars and estimate ...

Digestive enzymatic activity and nutritional responses of Autographa gamma (L.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), an important insect pest of sugar beet, on nine sugar beet cultivars (Peritra, Karolina, Paolita, Lenzier, Tiller, Ardabili, Persia, Rozier, and Dorothea) were studied. The highest proteolytic activity of fourth and fifth instar of A. gamma was in larvae fed on cultivar Persia. The highest ...

Chrysomya megacephala (F.) and Chrysomya rufifacies (Macquart) were colonized so that larval growth rates could be compared. Colonies were also established to provide insight into the protein needs of adult C. rufifacies and developmental rates of the ensuing larvae. The C. megacephala and C. rufifacies laboratory colonies were reared for five and six generations, respectively, at 28°C. C. mega...