Biological aspects of Caligo teucer (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) with banana tree leaves

Carlos Alberto Domingues Da Silva,Fabrício Fagundes Pereira,Wiane Meloni Silva,Luis Carlos Martínez,José Cola Zanuncio,Germano Leão Demolin Leite

doi:10.1590/1806-9665-rbent-2021-0062

Abstract

Caligo teucer (Linnaeus, 1758) is widely distributed in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Ecuador. The objective was to study biological aspects of Caligo teucer japetus Stichel, 1903 with banana leaves, Musa sapientium L. (Zingiberales: Musaceae), in the butterfly garden, under environmental conditions, and in the laboratory of biological control of insects at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa in Viçosa, Minas Gerais state, Brazil at 24 ± 2 oC, 68 ± 10% relative humidity and 12 hours photophase. The duration of the egg incubation, larvae, pupa and egg to adult periods of C. teucer japetus were, respectively, 11.8 ± 0.1; 53.9 ± 0.9; 17.9 ± 0.3 and 82.6 ± 1.0 days for females, and 11.8 ± 0.1; 50.3 ± 0.6; 18.4 ± 0.3 and 79.4 ± 0.6 days for males in cages in the laboratory. The longevity of C. teucer japetus adults was 26.0 ± 10.4 and 47.5 ± 8.7 for females and 24.7 ± 3.5 and 35.4 ± 15.7 for males in the butterfly garden and in laboratory cages, respectively. The high survival and the relatively short period of development of its immature stages confirm that banana leaves are an adequate food substrate for the development and survival of Caligo teucer japetus.

Highlights

Banana, Musa sapientium L. (Zingiberales: Musaceae) is the most consumed tropical fruit in the world and the main product of the international fresh fruit trade (Almeida and Gherardi, 2018)
Seventy-six C. teucer japetus eggs were collected on M. sapientium leaves at the University of Viçosa (UFV) Science Park butterfly garden and placed in Petri dishes until the larvae hatched which were individualized in transparent plastic 500 ml pots with a lid and fed daily with pieces of banana leaves until pupae is formed
The egg viability of C. teucer japetus females, originated from caterpillars fed with banana leaves was three times greater than that of C. illioneus with leaves of this plant, which may be due to the conditions of each experiment and the variations between species of this genus

Summary

Introduction

Musa sapientium L. (Zingiberales: Musaceae) is the most consumed tropical fruit in the world and the main product of the international fresh fruit trade (Almeida and Gherardi, 2018). In Brazil, this crop ranks second in planted area (458,871 ha) and production (6,789,420 tons) among the cultivated fruits (IBGE, 2020). The genus Caligo Hübner, [1819] (Satyrinae, Brassolina) has 21 species, all of large size (over 100 mm in wingspan), the majority of twilight habit and gregarious larvae in the initial stages (Penz et al, 1999; Casagrande and Mielke, 2000; Casagrande, 2002) Most studies with these species were on systematic (Wahlberg et al, 2003; Freitas and Brown, 2004; Mielke and Casagrande, 2006; Penz, 2007) and morphology (Souza et al, 2006; Casagrande and Mielke, 2008)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion