Abstract
Invasive species always pose a serious threat to agriculture and cost billions of dollars
in terms of reduced production and productivity. The recent preliminary survey in a
few districts of southern Sindh, Pakistan showed an apprehension of the entry of one
more new invasive pest belonging to genus Spodoptera is known as Fall Armyworm
(FAW), S. frugiperda (J.E. Smith) in April 2019. The identification for confirming this
alien pest was made employing morphological characters. The males were dissected to
study genitalia. The microscopic study revealed that male genitalia of the collected
species had a single lobe of coremata which is the main identification of FAW. The
wing characteristics showed that the males had dark gray and brown shaded mottled
forewings with conspicuous triangular white spots at the tip of the wings. The
forewings of females were less distinctly marked except few faint grayish brown
markings. There were six larval instars and the best identifying feature of the FAW in
mature larval stage (5th
-6
th instar) was a set of four large rectangular spots on the upper
surface of the second last segment of body and the face of larvae with obvious mark of
inverted white colored “Y” shape. In morphometric, we measured the head capsule of
each larval instar ranging 0.3-2.6mm in length and the larvae about 2-33.08mm. The
pupa was reddish brown in color, 14-18mm in length and about 4.5mm in width. The
present study confirmed the presence of S. frugiperda which requires an immense
attention to make an integrated pest management strategy against it.
Zeeshan Bhatt, Agha Mushtaque Ahmed, Imran Khatri, Qurban Rattar, Shahjahan Rajput, Mehvish Tofique, Harrison Younas. (2021) First report of morphometric identification of Spodoptera frugiperda J.E Smith (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) an invasive pest of maize in Southern Sindh, Pakistan, Asian Journal of Agriculture and Biology, Volume-09, Issue-1.
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