Red Marula caterpillar

Red Marula caterpillar

Namibian crop pests # 54

Mussidia nigrivenella

Order: Lepidoptera

Family: Pyralidae

Identification by Arne Larsen, based on Pinhey, 1975: Moths of Southern Africa.

Symptoms of caterpillars inside Marula fruits	Adult moth
	Soil cocoons, 20 mm long

Common names:	The species has local names but these were not recorded
Pest status:	Edible species. Although the pest is found inside the important Marula fruits, it may be considered beneficial, as some people eat this caterpillar. At present we know the marula caterpillar from 10 km southwest of Okalongo, Omusati region and from Ondobe ARDC, Ohangwena region. Most likely it can be found all over northern Namibia where Marula trees are common.
Description:	The caterpillar is only observed when the marula fruits drop to the ground and are collected daily for extraction of juice and subsequent production of marula oil from the pits. Attacked fruits contain dark red or greenish caterpillars. These feed in large tunnels inside the fruits until they finally are completely hollow. The presence is noticed by discolouring and wrinkling of fruits and droplets of juice that ooze out from the fruit. When the caterpillar is fully grown, it leaves the fruit through a 3-4 mm hole in the peel and burrows deep into the sand under the fruit. Pupation takes place in a 20 mm x 10 mm cocoon. The adult moth is grey or dark grey. Wingspan is 35 mm. Nigrivenella means black veins and on fresh specimens the black spots on the veins are clearly seen. They easily lose the scales, however and the wings then look more transparant. They tend to grease like many other species living inside plant tissue.
Control:	None, the species is edible.
Other notes:	The species is easy to rear. Collect many damaged fruits and place them in a single layer on some sand in a bucket. Wait for a week or two until the caterpillars have finished eating the fruit puls and dug into the sand and pupated. Carefully sift the sand to find the cocoons. Place these in a hatching cage and wait for the emerging moths. The adult moth is easily damaged so check the cage every day at time of emerging, or the specimens will soon spoil. May 2003. The species was tentatively identified from Pinhey, 1975: Moths of Southern Africa. Two new specimens were reared from Marula during early 2003 and made identification easier than from the specimen on the present photo. I found only one illustration on the Internet and Mamoudous Setamou's photo on the cover page is unfortunately distorted. In West Africa, M. nigrivenella is more known as a pest in maize cobs, although it seems to prefer other crops such as jackbean and velvet bean if they are available. Mamoudou Setamou, 1999: *Ecology and pest status of Mussidia nigrivenella* Ragonot (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), a cob borer of maize in West Africa.** This 140 page dissertation is available on-line as 1.6 Mb pdf file form University of Hannover at: www.tib.uni-hannover.de

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