Host Specificity of Calophasia lunula (Hufn.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Abstract

AbstractThis report shows: (1) by starvation tests on representative economic plants that none of them is a suitable host for C. lunula, (2) by feeding tests on plants in the Scrophulariaceae that only plants in the tribe Antirrhineae are potential hosts of the larvae, (3) by feeding tests with plant extracts that plants in the tribe Antirrhineae contain an unidentified feeding stimulant, (4) by preference tests with adults and larvae that, although the moths can be raised with difficulty in the laboratory on snapdragon and other ornamentals in the susceptible tribe, they are unlikely to attack these plants in nature.