Conopomorpha cramerella (Snellen, 1904)
Cocoa Pod Borer
(previously known as :
Acrocercops cramerella)
GRACILLARIINAE ,
GRACILLARIIDAE
Don Herbison-Evans (
donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )
&
Stella Crossley
(Picture : courtesy of
The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center)
These Caterpillars are a pest in tropical countries, because
the female adult moths lay their eggs on the unripe fruit of :
Nam-nam ( Cynometra cauliflora,
FABACEAE ),
Lychee ( Litchi chinensis,
SAPINDACEAE ),
Rambutan ( Nephelium lappaceum,
SAPINDACEAE ),
Kola ( Sterculia acuminata,
STERCULIACEAE ), and
Cocoa ( Theobroma cacao,
STERCULIACEAE ).
The Caterpillars tunnel into the center of the fruit,
where they feed on the seeds for about two to three weeks.
They chew their way out to pupate.
This species has been found in :
Indonesia,
Malaysia,
Philippines, as well as
Australia.
Control of the pest has been attempted by:
burning fallen leaves which can contain the cocoons,
sleeving the young pods with plastic bag (Matlick, B.K. ),
early harvesting (Depparaba, F.),
insecticides (Azhar, I. & Sabudin, M.A.),
breeding friut varieties with hard skins (Day, R.K.),
pheromone trapping (Beevor, P.S., Mumford, J.D., Shah, S., Day, R.K. & Hall, D.R.),
using toxins from the Bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis,
the
Black Cocoa Ant ( Dolichoderus thoracicus ,
FORMICIDAE ) (Ho, C.T.), and
the parasitoid wasp
Trichogrammatoidea bactrae fumata
(
TRICHOGRAMMATIDAE ) (Alias A., Lamin, K. & Lee, M.T.).
(updated 31 January 2005)
