Abstract:

Zophobas morio (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), introduced in China in recent years, is a multi-purpose insect, and can be manually fed in a large number of individual, with high nutritional value, as a high-protein fodder, in particular, it can be used as an alternative to breeding a variety of natural enemies of insect host. In the artificial propagation, the male and female are needed to be identified for sexual pairing to ensure fecundity. To identify female and male adults of Z. morio, their morphological characteristics were studied through the careful observation in this paper. The results showed there was sexual dimorphism of external morphology of Z. morio adults. The frons of the female adult was flat while that of male adult was sunken. Additionally, the length, width and length-width ratio of the third antennal segment and anal plate were significant different between the female and male adults. Above morphological characteristics can be used to efficiently distinguish sex of Z. morio adults without damage, and the knowledge would be useful in artificial propagation of Z. morio.

Key words: Zophobas morio, adult, sexual identification, morphological characteristics