Mediterranean Flour Moth

Flour moth ( Ephestia kuehniella ), preparation

The flour moth ( Ephestia kuehniella ) is a butterfly of the family of European corn borer ( Pyralidae ). The species is a common stored product pest.

Features

The flour moth has a wingspan of 20-25 mm and a body length of 10 to 14 mm. The front wings are forward slightly convex curved outwards, with perpendicular acting outside edge. They are colored lead- gray and usually carry two bright, lined with dark scales ribbons, jagged transverse lines and some minor black spots and a number of small, dark spots on the front edge. The coloration is very variable. The significantly wider rear wings are colored abstechend brighter on the top white with a gray border line, before connecting a wide, bright fringe -like scales tape on the underside pale silvery gray. The body is almost solid color, the same shade of gray as the front wings. The thread-like sensor and the proboscis are scaly gray. As with all the related species the labial palps are directed close to the head upwards. The abdomen is slightly lighter, in the male with a prominent whitish scales tuft at the back edge.

The species is significantly larger than all other related occurring as pests species.

Crawler

The caterpillars are in all stages of whitish colored with a darker head, pronotum dark and small on the other segments dark points at which it is small, the base of the hair surrounding sclerites and spiracles. Mature larvae of the stored product species can be determined with an American key. From the cocoa moth ( Ephestia elutella ) the caterpillar to the size of the stigma of the eighth abdominal segment is distinguishable. This is about the same as the nearest dark annular sclerite ( the bristle " SD1 " ), the cocoa moth significantly smaller in the flour moth. In the Indian meal moth ( Plodia interpunctella ) the bristle accompanying Ringsklerite the first eight abdominal segments are all brightly colored.

Life cycle

The species has six caterpillar stages. From the deposited eggs hatch after about 96 hours (at 30 ° C), the first larval instar. The first larva reached less than a millimeter in length. Verpuppungsreife the larva stage of said sixth reached 11 to 13 mm in length and a weight of less than 30 milligrams. It needs it ( at 30 ° C) about 41 days; for the development from egg to imago new 50 days. The larva pupates in a homespun dolls quiver, which is camouflaged with foreign material, usually outside of the food substrate. The pupa is at first greenish, later it turns on top of the fuselage to red-brown. She is about 9 millimeters long. The hatched butterflies are quickly ready to mate. The females can lay eggs without having previously taken food - for a storage pest is an important advantage. The moths are mostly nocturnal. The females are ready to deposit in the second year following the Schupf night. The species develops in Europe usually three, in very warm buildings four generations per year. It lays at temperatures permanently above 25 ° C no diapause in. Imagines are found mainly in summer (July to October).

Way of life

The caterpillar feeds mainly on flour and requires no water or other food sources for successful development. You can also intact cereal grains (mainly corn ), processed flour products such as pasta and other vegetable substances, such as dry vegetables and vegetable products are harmful (such as cherimoya, pigeon pea, star apple, mango ). Of vegetables and fruits but the related cocoa moth is far more common. The larvae spin Wegfäden in all movements and usually live in loosely assembled rovings. This can cause major damage to the machine processing of flour.

In the household are, once entered into a supply closet, contaminated all preferred food in no time. You can overcome thread, bite through thin packaging and crawl up to 400 meters.

Combat

The most common traditional method of control in warehouses and processing plants was fumigation with methyl bromide, its use has been with legal force of the Montreal Protocol but increasingly restricted. As a substitute often used sulfuryl fluoride. In addition, are common insecticides such as pyrethroids and phosphoric acid esters in use. This subject, however, when in contact with food and use restrictions are not very popular with consumers. Therefore, there have been increased efforts to alternative methods. Thus, the synthetic pheromone (Z, E) -9,12 - tetradecadienyl ( TDA), the male lures used, but so far not with resounding success. Numerous plant extracts and essential oils have been tested experimentally.

Already for a long time have found attention as potential antagonists of the flour moth parasitoid ichneumon. Since the 1920s, the " flour moth parasitic wasp " Venturia canescens is investigated in this regard, which parasitizes other, stock harmful caterpillars. The braconid wasp parasitizes Habrobracon hebetor flour moth caterpillars, albeit less frequently.

In Household Cooling suspicious inventories is recommended below 10 ° C to stop the development. Caterpillars can be longer than 20 minutes by freezing, but also by heating of inventories at 60 ° C, are killed. Available pheromone traps are used to determine infestation in the trade, but they are not particularly effective for the control itself. Significant reduction strategy in the household is infected and suspicious inventories throw away bravely.

Taxonomy

Philipp Christoph Zeller named the species in honor of Julius Kühn, from whom he had received the material. The animals came from a mill in Hall " the grinding much American wheat ". The species is classified in the subgenus Anagasta Heinrich, 1956. The genus Ephestia comprises 14 species worldwide, of which in Central Europe, in addition to household pests flour moth and cocoa moth, only three species are to be expected in the field.

Dissemination

The species is abducted by the people worldwide. It comes in Central Europe never in the field, but only in buildings. A new infection is not done by flying moths, but by infected stocks. As original home of the species North and Central America is given. However, this is controversial; other editors go instead of from an original homeland in the Mediterranean region and / or Turkey.

Swell

• P. C. Zeller: Entomological comments 3 Ephestia kuehniella n.sp. Entomological newspaper 40, 1879, pp. 466-471, full text source
• Lepiforum eV: determination means for the proven European butterfly species