Aulacophora is a genus of beetles in the family Chrysomelidae, commonly known as pumpkin beetles; some species are pests of agricultural crops. The genus was named in 1836 by the French entomologist Louis Alexandre Auguste Chevrolat, in Dejean's Catalogue des Coléoptères. The name, from Ancient Greek, signifies "furrow-bearer"' from aulax, "furrow".
Description
Beetles in this genus are oval insects up to about 8mm (0.3in) long and can be recognised by their presence on the host plant.
Distribution
Pumpkin beetles are found in Africa, Asia and Australasia. Some of the more important pest species are A. foveicollis from Africa, Europe and Asia, A. similis from southern and southeastern Asia, A. coffeae from Malaysia, A. flavomarginata from Malaysia and Indonesia, A. femoralis from Myanmar and Vietnam, A. lewisii from Malaysia and Vietnam, and A. frontalis from Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos.
The eggs, which are yellow, are laid in batches of up to five in the soil at the base of cucurbit plants. They hatch after eight to fifteen days and the larvae feed on the roots or tunnel into them, feeding for eighteen to thirty-five days and passing through four instar stages. They are creamy white at first but have turned yellowish-orange by the time they pupate in chambers in the ground. The adult beetles emerge after from four to fourteen days. They are strong fliers and disperse to other plants. The adult beetles may live for up to ten months and each female can lay in the order of five hundred eggs, so there can be several overlapping generations of beetles.
Damage
Adult pumpkin beetles feed on the foliage and flowers of the host plants; seedlings may be destroyed by heavy attacks and young plants may be severely affected. Several beetles may cluster on a single leaf, leaving other leaves untouched. The beetles feed between the veins, often cutting and removing circular discs which they then eat. The larvae tunnel into the roots, which become swollen, discoloured and distorted, and the plant may die.
The following described species are considered nomina dubia, because their poor descriptions and missing type material mean they cannot be identified to species:
Aulacophora artensis (Montrouzier, 1861) – from New Caledonia; probably a synonym of Aulacophora abdominalis (Fabricius, 1781), or possibly a pale form of Aulacophora deplanchei (Perroud, 1864); type material probably lost
Aulacophora flavescens (Montrouzier, 1855) – from both Woodlark Island and San Cristoval Island; possibly a species of the Aulacophora indica species complex
Aulacophora flaveola (Boisduval, 1835) – from New Guinea; formerly treated as a possible senior synonym of Aulacophora aruensis (Weise, 1892); not identifiable to genus
Aulacophora punctata (Boisduval, 1835) – from New Guinea; not identifiable to genus
Aulacophora scutellata (Boisduval, 1835) – from the "Pacific Ocean"; originally treated as a synonym of Aulacophora wilsoni Baly, 1888, but more likely a synonym of Candezea palustris (Perroud & Montrouzier, 1864)
12Beenen, R. (2010). "Galerucinae Latreille, 1802". In Löbl, I.; Smetana, A. (eds.). Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera. Volume 6. Chrysomeloidea. Stenstrup, Denmark: Apollo Books. pp.443–491. ISBN978-87-88757-84-2.
1234"Pumpkin beetle"(PDF). Pacific Pests and Pathogens Fact Sheet. PestNet. Archived(PDF) from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
