Morphometric Comparison of the Oil Palm Pollinator Elaeidobius kamerunicus Faust (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Liberia

Abstract

The oil palm pollinating weevil Elaeidobius kamerunicus Faust (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) was first introduced into Malaysia from Cameroon in 1981 as the main oil palm pollinator. Adult weevils were collected from six localities in Malaysia, one locality in Indonesia, and one locality in Liberia. Morphometric analysis was performed to detect possible morphological differences among these populations. Fifteen morphometric characters were examined and analyzed using multivariate analyses. Principle Component Analysis indicated that there was complete separation by sexual dimorphism for weevils from the three countries. Snout length between the apex and anterior eye margin at mid-height, profemoral length, body length, and pronotal width at the widest point were the morphometric characters that differentiated male and female weevils. Canonical Discriminant Analysis suggested that separation existed among the three different countries, with 77.5% and 83.3% classification accuracy for males and females, respectively.