Study of the flying ability of Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae) adults using a computer-monitored flight mill

The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) (Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae), native to tropical Asian regions, has become a serious threat to palm trees all over the world. Knowledge of its flight potential is vital to improving the preventive and curative measures currently used to manage this pest. As R. ferrugineus is a quarantine pest, it is difficult to study its flight potential in the field. A computer-monitored flight mill was adapted to analyse the flying ability of R. ferrugineus through the study of different flight parameters (number of flights, total distance flown, longest single flight, flight duration, and average and maximum speed) and the influence of the weevil s sex, age, and body size on these flight parameters. Despite significant differences in the adult body size (body weight and length) of males and females, the sex of R. ferrugineus adults did not have an influence on their flight potential. Neither adult body size nor age was found to affect the weevil s flying abilities, although there was a significantly higher percentage of individuals flying that were 8 23 days old than 1 7 days old. Compared to the longest single flight, 54% of the insects were classified as short-distance flyers (covering 5000m), respectively. The results are compared with similar studies on different insect species under laboratory and field conditions.
The authors wish to thank researcher Daniel Sauvard (INRA - Unite de Zoologie Forestiere - Orleans) for helping in the knowledge of the flight mill technique. For the help in the design and construction of the flight mill device, we thank Anna Comes and Inaki Moratal. For the reviews on the previous versions of this manuscript, we thank Ferran Garcia-Mari (Universitat Politecnica de Valencia - Instituto Agroforestal del Mediterraneo) and Apostolos Pekas (Biobest Belgium N. V.). This research was partially funded by the Foundation of the Comunidad Valencia for the Agroalimentary Research, Agroalimed, within the project named: Study of the flight behaviour and chromatic attraction in Rhynchophorus ferrugineus adults (Coleoptera: Curculionidae).