Abstract:

The seabuckthorn carpenter moth, Holcocerus hippophaecolus is a severe boring insect in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Liaoning, Hebei and Gansu Provinces in recent years, and mainly cause damage to stems and roots of seabuckthorn during larvae stage. Morphological characteristics and biology were preliminarily studied in order to control effectively this pest. The results show that a generation of H. hippophaecolus lasted four years in Liaoning Province, the mature larvae begin to pupate in the first of May under the ground and the moths emerge from the end of May to the early of September with two peaks of eclosion, the middle of June and the last of July respectively. The female moth always laid eggs to the crevice and wound in stem bark, the hatching rate of the egg is 90% and egg stage is 16 d. The larvae have the habit of aggregation with several to hundreds and transfer from the stems to the roots. The mature larvae pupate in soil around the base of stem with the depth of 10 cm and pupal stage is 31 d. The moth emergence occurs in 4:00—7:00 p.m., and copulation peak appears around 9:30 p.m.; the sex ratio of female to male is 1∶0.85 in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and 0.912∶1 in Liaoning; the female may laid eggs through all day and night, especially in the next night from 8:30 to 10:00 p.m. after copulation; the logevity of male moth is 2～8 d and female moth is 3～8 d. Larvae overwinter in the stems and roots of seabuckthorn, and the overwintering stages and location were not influenced by the direction of slope and the degree of damage in different woodlands.

Key words: Holcocerus hippophaecolus, morphological characteristics, biology, natural enemies, overwintering