European Corn Borer
Ostrinia nubialis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Lepidoptera Family: Crambidae Genus: Ostrinia Species: O. nubilalis
Binomial name
Ostrinia nubilalis [1] (Hübner, 1796)

The European Corn Borer (Ostrinia nubilalis) is a pest of grain, particularly maize. The insect is native to Europe originally infesting varieties of millet including broom corn. The European corn borer was first reported in North America in 1917 in Massachusetts, but was probably introduced from Europe several years earlier. Since its initial discovery in the Americas, the insect has spread into Canada and westward across the United States to the Rocky Mountains.

European corn borer caterpillars damage the ears of corn, as well as the stalks, chewing tunnels which cause the plants to fall over. Biological control agents of corn borers include the hymenopteran parasitoid Trichogramma.

Bt corn, a variety of transgenic maize, has had its genome modified to include a gene from the Bacillus thuringiensis, ssp. kurstaki. As a result the corn variety produces a toxin which affects the corn borer, and as critics have pointed out, beneficial predatory insects as well.^[2]

Description

The corn borer moth is about one inch long with a one inch wingspan. The female moth is light yellowish-brown with dark irregular, wavy bands across the wings. The male is slightly smaller and darker in coloration. The tip of its abdomen protrudes beyond its closed wings. The fully-grown larva is three-quarters to one inch in length. This borer is usually flesh-colored, but may range from light gray to faint pink, with conspicuous small, round brown spots on each segment.

Female corn borer moths lay clusters of eggs on corn leaves, usually on the underside of the leaf. The egg masses, or clusters, are laid in an overlapping configuration and are whitish-yellow in color. As the larvae develop inside their eggs, the eggs become more and more transparent and the immature caterpillar's black head is eventually visible. The caterpillars hatch by chewing their way out of the eggs.

Notes

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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "European Corn Borer". Image Credit.

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