Abstract

Octavio Siqueiros*, Julio César Montalbán, Fernando Paz and Benito Díaz

The reproductive behavior of maize weevil was investigated in prior research with a focus on biological traits of the insect. However, the impact of cereal food support material on some ethological and biological characteristics of Sitophilus zeamais had received little attention thus far. The focus of this study is to fill this void by exploring the existence of a causal relationship between grain characteristics and insect traits. Biological and ethological analysis revealed that the duration of sexual maturation was 4.25 ± 0.40 days for both rice and corn. The other parameters (fertility, duration of development, emergence of adults, descent’s weight, mortality and lifetime of the insect) varied according to the nature of the food/egg laying material. The above set of key behavioral parameters provided a comprehensive analysis of the scientific environment within which the contributions of the study were derived. In addition to providing a useful prognosis of the insect’s development in Cote d’Ivoire, the study confirms the causal relationship between grain characteristics and insect traits