Red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst): biology and management

Abstract

According to an estimate, the world’s population will reach upto 9.1 billion till 2050 and food production is projected to increase up to 70%. Developing countries already facing food scarcity contribute most in population growth. In these countries, one in every six children suffers from hunger and malnutrition. In these critical situation, protection of the grains and food products from insect infestation during pre-harvest and post-harvest is urgently necessary it causes mass losses of grains. In several countries, about 15% of grains are lost harvesting or post-harvesting stages. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has estimated this loss up to 40% in India. Among the culprits of these losses, coleopteran insect species play major roles. Among coleopterans, red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum causes loss of grains and food products to larger extent in post-harvest stage. T. castaneum is a secondary pest with a wide host range infesting almong, barley, beans, ground nuts, lentils, maize, oat, peas, rice, rye, sorghum, wheat and other processed grain products. Adults and larvae attack grains already damaged by primary pest and feed mainly on the germ. For the management of T. castaneum population, several approaches including synthetic insecticides have been applied with lots of success but leaving several environmental and human health issues too. To minimize these adverse effects, plant derived volatile chemicals i.e. essential oils and its constituents alone or in combination have been used and got promising results. Since these are volatile, non-persistent and biodegradable, essential oil based formulations can be used for the management of T. castaneum at large as green eco-friendly insecticide

Anatomical changes of Tenebrio molitor and Tribolium castaneum during complete metamorphosis

“…The red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum Herbst 1797, and the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor Linneus 1758, (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) are the most studied human commensals associated with stored grain, flour, or other cereal-based food products (Atta et al 2020 ; Rumbos et al 2020 ). For this reason, the research to date has primarily focused on their biological cycle, which, for the red flour beetle takes approximately 4–6 weeks and the pupal stage 6–8 days (Chandrasekar and Palli 2011 ; Chaubey 2023 ), depending on the temperature and food supply (Skourti et al 2022 ). In contrast, the entire developmental process of T. molitor lasts 10–12 weeks, including 14 to 18 larval stages and 7–8 days of pupal stage at 28 °C (Arbab 2019 ; Chandrasekar and Palli 2011 ; Connat et al 1991 ; Morales-Ramos et al 2015 ; Park et al 2014 ; Yu et al 2021 ).…”