Fungus as Food for Some Stored-Product Insects

Nine species of stored-product insects representing 8 genera in 6 families of Coleoptera and 1 genus of Psocoptera were exposed to 23 species of seed-borne fungi and 1 actinomycete cultures on potato-sugar agar in the laboratory. Some feeding by all 9 species was observed on Cladosporium cladosporioides (Fresenius) de Vries, Nigrospora sphaerica (Saccardo) Mason, and Alternaria alternata (Fries) Keissler. Most insects rejected Streptomyces griseus (Krainsky) Waksman and Henrici, Cochliobolus sativus (Ito and Kurib.) Drechsler ex Dastur, and Aspergilles spp. The granary weevil, Sitophilus granarius (L.); and the lesser grain borer, Rhyzopertha dominica (F.), fed lightly on a few but failed to reproduce on any microorganism. The psocid Lepinotus reticulatus (Enderlein) and the beetles Lathridius minutus (L.) and Microgramma arga (Reitter) were the most successful fungivores.