Biological Control of Insect Pests: Southeast Asian Prospects - EcoPort

86 Biological Control of Insect Pests: Southeast Asian Prospects
Cosmopolites sordidus (Germar)
Rating
Origin
Distribution
Coleoptera: Curculionidae
banana weevil borer
Southeast Asia China Southern and Western Pacific
+++ Viet +++ Cook Is, Fr. P, Fiji, Guam,
New Cal, Niue, A Sam, Tong
13 ++ Msia, Brun, Indo,
Phil
+ Thai, Sing + FSM
P Camb P P Kir
? Myan, Laos
35 ++ PNG, Sol Is, Sam, Van,
W & F
This account brings up-to-date the chapter on C. sordidus in Waterhouse and
Norris (1987) and increases its relevance to Southeast Asia.
According to Purseglove (1972) the genus Musa has a centre of diversity in
the Assam-Burma-Thailand area and it probably originated there. The
banana weevil borer is also stated to be a native of the Indo-Malaysian region
(Zimmerman 1968; Clausen 1978). Although this region seems a likely
centre of origin of the weevil, and those investigating its biological control
have consistently assumed so, there had already been, by the time of
GermarÕs 1824 description based on material from India, centuries of
intercontinental travel by Europeans, by means of which the weevil could
have spread to many other lands in infested plants, thus obscuring its origin.
There are only two species in the genus Cosmopolites,
the lesser known
C. pruinosus occurring in Borneo and the Philippines and, after introduction,
in Micronesia (Zimmerman 1968).
C. sordidus is present in virtually all banana-growing areas of the world,
including most, if not all, of Southeast Asia and most of the Pacific.
Exceptions in the Pacific are Marshall Is, Tuvalu and Tokelau (Anon. 1979b;
Waterhouse and Norris 1987; Waterhouse 1997). In Southeast Asia no
information is available from Laos and the situation in Myanmar is unclear.
A recommendation was made in the standard work on the ÔInsect Pests of
BurmaÕ (Ghosh 1940) to guard against the introduction to that country of
C. sordidus and neither N. von Keyserlingk nor G. Pierrard (pers. comm.