173 



333. ; Mitchell, E. B.; and Huddleston, P. M. 1967. Laboratory studies 



of sex attraction in the boll weevil. J. Econ. Entoraol. 60: 1221-122A. 

 Laboratory studies with the sex attractant of the boll weevil, Anthonomus 

 grand is Boheman, confirmed previous findings that the female aggressively 

 seeks the pheromone-emitting male. In both sexes, peak activity occurred 

 when the weevils were 4-6 days old and the other was less than 2 days old, 

 the males were mostly unattractive and the females mostly unresponsive. 

 Females responded to a single male, but response was significantly greater 

 to 5, 10, or 25 males. Virgin males were twice as attractive and virgin 

 females were 3 times as responsive as mated males or females. Males 

 sterilized with apholate were about half as attractive to virgin females 

 as untreated males when both were fed on laboratory diet but were equally 

 attractive when both were fed on fresh cotton squares (flower buds). Com- 

 parisons between laboratory (medium-reared) and field (square-reared) 

 male weevils, each fed cotton squares or laboratory diet, indicated a 

 greater importance of food rather than strain in determining female re- 

 sponse. 



334. ; Mitchell, E. B.; and Huddleston, P. M. 1967. Procedure for 



bioassaying the sex attractant of the^boll weevil. J. Econ. Entomol. 



^ 60: 169-171. 



A newly developed laboratory bioassay procedure showed that male boll weevils, 

 Anthonomus grand is Boheman, produce an air-borne pheromone that is attractive 

 to females. In 1- and 16-hour tests when weevils were preconditioned by 3 

 different treatments, significantly more females responded to males than to 

 females. When callow adult weevils were removed from the rearing medium 

 before they made contact with other insects, response of females to males 

 increases significantly over those having such contact. In 1-hour tests 

 a slight response of males to males was observed and significantly fewer 



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