Biological Cycle of Bug <i>Pseudotheraptus devastans</i> Distant (Heteroptera: Coreidae), the Coconut Pest in Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

Pseudotheraptus devastans Distant (Heteroptera: Coreidae), is an important coconut pest in Côte d'Ivoire. The stings from Nymph and adult cause not only the falling of immature nuts, but also their deformation. This triggers losses of production in the order can reach 80%. Little information is available about this pest. Those existing are limited to its ecology and damages caused in host-plants. The present investigation is aimed to study the life cycle of this pest. The experiment was carried out in a coconut field of the Marc Delorme Coconut Research Station (MDCRS). On these coconut palms, bunches between 3 and 4 months of age, enclosed in cage were used. Development duration from an egg to adult emergence averaged 28.26 days. The average incubation period was on average 6.63 days and fertility rate of eggs was 98.01%. Nymphal development period was 21.63 days. The sex-ratio is in favour of females which live 112.6 ± 13.45 days. These females laid on average 198.85 ± 36.05 eggs. The males lived on average 131.3 ± 17.7 days. The knowledge of these different parameters could allow the development of a control method based on the breaking of life cycle of this pest.

Important alien and potential native invasive insect pests of key fruit trees in Sub-Saharan Africa: advances in sustainable pre- and post-harvest management approaches

“…The polyphagous Coreid bugs, Pseudotheraptus wayi, and Pseudotheraptus devastans are important pests of coconuts, cashew, macadamia, mango, guava, litchi, and avocado among other non-tree crops such as cassava (Egonyu 2013;Van Der Meulen and Schoeman 1994;Nyambo 2009). The two pests occur widely in tropical Africa with P. devastans wreaking havoc mainly in West Africa (Doh et al 2016;Douaho 1984) and P. wayi restricted to East Africa (Egonyu 2013). The two coreids are known to cause between 75-100% direct damage to shoots and flowers resulting in yield loss of 80% or more in various crops (Maniania and Ekesi 2016).…”

“…In guava, the yield loss can be as much as 52.4% (Van der Meulen 1992) while on litchi 40% fruit drop has been reported in South Africa (Schoeman and Mohlala 2013). On the other hand, P. devastans has been reported to reduce yield in coconut by up to 80% (Doh et al 2016;Mariau et al 1981) and ranks among the most devastating pests of coconut particularly in Côte d'Ivoire (Dwomoh et al 2009).…”