Pests > Pests Entities > Insects > Moths & butterflies > Crambidae (possibly), dragon fruit, El Salvador

February 2013. A caterpillar on dragon fruit sent from El Salvador for identification.

There were several suggestions:

• Lepidoptera: Pyralidae
• Maruca, but even though it looks like it, there is need to breed it out
• Actually, there is only one species of Marucain the Americas: Maruca vitrata(Fabricius). So, if it were not the legume pest, M. vitrata, it would not be a Marucasp. It think it would be safer to treat it as an unidentified Crambidae.

  It was also said that there is a crambid recorded from Hylocereusin Costa Rica: Maracayia chlorisalis(Walker) (Crambidae, Pyraustinae) (http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu/), although I don’t know the appearance of the caterpillar or details of its biology. The adult should be compared with this species.