Zeuzera leuconotum Butler(Lepidoptera: Cossidae), it has been one of the most damaging pests to many kinds of trees in northern China in recent years. Its larvae cause serious damage by tunneling into tree trunks. Commonly, it is controlled by cutting off damaged branches, but no significant results appear. Presently, there is a growing interest in manipulating its sexual behavior to lure and control its adult pests. Therefore, it is necessary to know reproductive character and sexual tendency of the adult Zeuzera leuconotum Butler. In this paper, adult reproductive behavior and characters were investigated at 19-32 ℃ and 75%-85% RH under 14L:10D. While the sexual tendency of the pest was researched in detail by wind tunnel technique and field test.
The results showed that the emergence period of the pest lasted for 60 days, from the last half of May to the first half of July, with a peak of emergence in the last 10 days of June. The daily emergence peak occurred from 17:00 to 18:00,and counted 55.4 percent to the number of daily emergence. The ratio of female to male was 1:1.03. A few adults became sexual maturity on the same day of emergence. Furthermore, the mating behavior was observed at the scotophase. The mating peak occurred after 5 to 7 hours of entering scotophase. The female age influenced mating behavior. The ratio of mating raised as age increased, and reached a peak when females were 2 or 3 days old, then decreased gradually. As female age increased, the starting time of mating (time after light switched off) became earlier, which ranged from 6.83 h to 5.96 h, but the duration of mating became longer. Both the female and male mated only once in their whole life. A copulated female laid 378 eggs in its whole life on average, and the ratio of egg fertility is about 80%, while the virgin female laid 426 eggs on average, but they did not hatch. The lifespan of the virgin female and unmated male was 5.56 days and 3.83 days on average, whereas that of the copulated female and male was 5.66 days and 2.41days on average, respectively, indicating that mating shortens the lifespan of male, but has no influence on that of female. On the other hand, the 2-days-old virgin female and male Zeuzera leuconotum Butler moth was laid at the uptake of wind tunnel to determine their sexual tendency. The results showed that the virgin female attracted the male before mating in the same species, and the same sexual moths did not get together. In the field test, it was found that the delta-traps with a virgin female moth as lure caught the males. And the number of the males attracted by the 2 or 3-days-old virgin females was the biggest, significantly bigger than 1 or 4, 5, 6 days-old females(P＜0.01).
In conclusion, the female moth has more attractive ability to the male and the adult reproductive characters make for controlling the population of the pests by interfering sexual communication. Therefore, it is feasible to control Zeuzera leuconotum Butler by using the method of sex pheromone.