New host plant records for Oenomaus ortygnus (Cramer) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in Mexico

SCIENTIFIC NOTE

New host plant records for Oenomaus ortygnus (Cramer) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in Mexico

A Castañeda-Vildózola^I; C Nava-Díaz^II; M Duarte^III; O Franco-Mora^I; LM Hernández-Fuentes^IV

^ICentro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados en Fitomejoramiento, Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Campus El Cerrillo, Toluca, Estado de México, México

^IIColegio de Posgraduados, Campus Montecillo, Montecillo, Texcoco, Estado de México, México

^IIIMuseu de Zoologia, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brasil

^IVINIFAP – Campo Experimental Santiago Ixcuintla, Santiago Ixcuintla, Nayarit, México

^{Correspondence}

ABSTRACT

This is the first record of Oenomaus ortygnus (Cramer) damaging fruits of ilama (Annona diversifolia) and extends the butterfly distribution for three states in Mexico.

Keywords: Biology, Eumaeini, fruit borer insect, immature stage

Peña & Bennett (1995) reported 296 species of Neotropical insects associated with Annona (Annonaceae), among them, the borers, such as Bephratelloides cubensis (Ashmead) (Hymenoptera: Eurytomidae), Cerconota anonella (Sepp) (Lepidoptera: Elachistidae), and Oenomaus ortygnus (Cramer) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae), are the main pests causing economically important damages to the crops.

Oenomaus ortygnus is a relatively large hairstreak butterfly found in wet and dry lowland forests from southern Texas throughout Central America to Southern Brazil (Godman & Salvin 1887-1901, Fennah 1937, Clench 1964, Domínguez-Gil 1978, Coto & Saunders 2001, Faynel 2006). This species may be readily distinguished from other Oenomaus included in the O.atena group (Faynel 2006, 2008) by genitalic characters and by an iridescent aquamarine color above and a pinkish-gray or bluish-gray ventral pattern with a distinctive black basal spot and extensive blue along lower margin (Fig 1d), which may vary geographically. Despite its widespread distribution, the species is uncommon in some localities, but occurs throughout the year, and since some species of Annona produce fruits throughout the year (Janick & Paull 2008), O. ortygnus may be found most of the year (January to November in Mexico, see Opler et al 2010).

Oenomaus ortygnus has been found in 12 states of Mexico (Fig 2) (Godman & Salvin 1887-1901, Kendall 1975, Raguso & Llorente-Bousquets 1990). The report of Kendall (1975) of females ovipositing and larvae feeding on the fruits of Annona globiflora Schltdl. (Annonaceae) in Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas, is the only information available so far for Mexico. To update the status of this pest in Mexico, we inspected the most important Annona growing areas from March 2008 to February 2009.

Five fruits of Annona reticulata L. that showed damage by O. ortygnus were collected in March 2008 in Tepalcingo, Morelos (18º35'N, 98º50'W, elevation 1169 m). Six fruits of A. diversifolia Safford with the same damages were found in September 2008 in Cacahuamilapa, Guerrero (18º40'N, 99º30'W, elevation 1163 m). Three fruits of A. reticulata were attacked by O. ortygnus in February 2009 in Zacapala, Puebla (18º35'N, 98º03'W, elevation 1254 m). Collected fruits were placed in plastic containers (40 x 21 x 12 cm) and covered with cheesecloth so that adults could not escape. The samples were incubated at 26 ± 1ºC and relative humidity of 50%. Five adults of O. ortygnus, from larvae reared on these fruits, emerged in the lab.

Although the presence of O. ortygnus has been often noticed on bullock heart (A. reticulata L.), soursop (A. muricata L.) and cherimola (A. cherimola Mill.) (Domínguez-Gil 1978, Calvo 1998, Coto & Saunders 2001, Beccaloni et al 2008), we found no evidence that this butterfly damaged soursop and cherimola in our surveys. We visited orchards in Las Varas, Nayarit (21º11'N, 105º08'W, elevation 40 m) and Coatepec Harinas, Estado de México (18º45'N, 99º45'W, elevation 2119 m) in July, August, and November 2008, other insect pests were recorded attacking A. muricata as B. cubensis and Talponia batesi Heinrich (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) on cherimola, respectively.

All fruits of A. reticulata and A. diversifolia attacked by O. ortygnus showed necrosis (Fig 1a). Larvae are usually found under the dead tissue (Fig 1b), feeding on the fruit pulp. One to five larvae may be found per fruit. In the laboratory pupation occurred on the external surface of the fruit (Fig 1c) as observed by Calvo (1998) with a population of O. ortygnus at the Estación Experimental Santa Lúcia, Barva, Heredia, Costa Rica.

The present report increases the knowledge about O. ortygnus in two ways: it adds a new record of Annona as larval host plant and extends the known distribution of the butterfly for the Morelos state in Mexico. Adults were deposited in the fruit pest collection at Fundación Salvador Sánchez Colín CICTAMEX, S.C., Coatepec Harinas, Estado de México, México.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge Dr. Robert K. Robbins (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution) for important comments, corrections, and for reviewing the manuscript. For sharing with us information on the geographical distribution of O. ortygnus in Mexico, we thank Dr. Jorge Llorente-Bousquets, Dr. Moisés Armando Luis-Martínez, Dr. Isabel Vargas-Fernández (Museo de Zoología "Alfonso L. Herrera", Departamento de Biología Evolutiva, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), and Dr. Robert K. Robbins. For financial support, MD thanks Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo/ FAPESP (as part of the project "Systematics, Bionomy, and Evolution of Neotropical Lepidoptera – process number 02/13898-0) and Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa of the Universidade de São Paulo/USP/Projeto 1 and M. Sc. Jorge Váldez-Carrasco for helping with the illustrations. Thanks also to anonymous reviewers for valuable comments.

Received 03 June 2010 and accepted 27 August 2010

Edited by Takumasa Kondo – CORPOICA

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Sept 2011
• Date of issue
  Aug 2011