Abstract
The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) (Coleoptera:
Dryophthoridae), native to tropical Asian regions, has become a serious threat
to palm trees all over the world. Knowledge of its flight potential is vital to
improving the preventive and curative measures currently used to manage this
pest. As R. ferrugineus is a quarantine pest, it is difficult to study its flight potential
in the field. A computer-monitored flight mill was adapted to analyse the flying
ability of R. ferrugineus through the study of different flight parameters (number
of flights, total distance flown, longest single flight, flight duration, and average
and maximum speed) and the influence of the weevils sex, age, and body size
on these flight parameters. Despite significant differences in the adult body size
(body weight and length) of males and females, the sex of R. ferrugineus adults
did not have an influence on their flight potential. Neither adult body size nor
age was found to affect the weevils flying abilities, although there was a
significantly higher percentage of individuals flying that were 823 days old
than 17 days old. Compared to the longest single flight, 54% of the insects were
classified as short-distance flyers (covering <100m) and 36 and 10% were classified
as medium- (1005000m) and long-distance (> 5000m), respectively. The results
are compared with similar studies on different insect species under laboratory and
field conditions.
