360 A. D. N. T. Kumara et al.
in loss of fronds and damage to palms (Howard
et al. 2001 ). Large numbers of Lepidopterans are
also recorded as major devastating pests of coco-
nut, mainly feeding on leaves and inflorescence.
The coconut mite, Aceria guerreronis Keifer, is
a serious mite pest and damages immature nuts
causing serious yield losses. The coconut beetle,
Brontispa longissima Gestro is a serious chryso-
melid pest of coconut in Southeast Asia. Interest-
ingly, it does not occur in India and Sri Lanka.
This is probably because the trade of coconut and
planting materials takes in a sea route connect-
ing the Maldives, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam,
and other East Asian countries. Red palm weevil
(RPW) is widely considered the most devastat-
ing insect pest of palms in South and Southeast
Asia and in the Middle East (Sivapragasam et al.
1990 ; Faleiro and Satarkar 2003 ). The detection
of pest infestation is difficult because the grub
starts feeding from inside the palm and never
comes outside till the adult emergence. The rhi-
noceros beetle (RB) feeds on the growing por-
tion of the palm leading to ragged appearance.
The heavily attacked palm dies or gets exposed
to damage by secondary pests (Thampan 1975 ).
The coconut black-headed caterpillar (BHC) is a
defoliating pest of coconut, attacking the coconut
gardens in patches but heavily.
The tall nature of coconut palm creates dif-
ficulties to adopt pest management practices
straightforwardly. A variety of cultural, biologi-
cal, and chemical control measures have been
employed to manage the pests. The difficulties in
the detection of the correct time to manage the
pest, hidden habitat of the most coconut pests,
and the availability of suitable foods throughout
the year create serious pest threats to the coconut
palm worldwide (Kumara 2007 ). Root feeding,
trunk injection and foliar spraying of synthetic
pesticide, application of botanical pesticides, im-
proving the palm vigor by the application of or-
ganic fertilizer, use of biological control methods
such as predators and parasitoids, mass trapping
of pests by using sex pheromone and aggrega-
tion pheromone, as well as adopting several
physical and mechanical practices are some of
the management practices widely used to com-
bat the three coconut pests. These practices are
employed singly, by combinations, or as an inte-
grated package. In this chapter, the current status
and the management practices of three important
insect pests of coconut, viz., the RPW, the RB,
and the BHC are discussed (Fig. 1 ).Red Palm Weevil (RPW)
Biosystematics
RPWs, commonly known as Asian red palm
weevils, are large, polyphagous insects (usually
greater than 25 mm long) belonging to Rhyn-
chophorinae, a subfamily within Curculionidae
(Coleoptera) (Borror et al. 1964 ). The Asian spe-
cies include, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, Rhyn-
chophorus vulneratus (Panzer), Rhynchophorus
distinctus (Wattanapongsiri) Rhynchophorus lo-
batus (Ritsema), and Rhynchophorus bilineatus
(Montrouzier) (Murphy and Briscoe 1999 ).Distribution and Host Range
The RPW is native to southern Asia and Mela-
nesia. It was first identified in the early twenti-
eth century in South and Southeast Asia (Lefroy
1906 ; Brand 1917 ). In the later part of the twen-
tieth century, the RPW spread to Middle East
Asia, North Africa, Europe, and Australia (Bux-
ton 1920 ; Abraham et al. 1998 ; Al-Ayedh 2008 ;
Li et al. 2009 ; Faleiro 2006 ). In 1985, the RPW
was first recorded from the northern United Arab
Emirates in the Middle East and has become wide-
spread in that area (Ferry and Gomez 2002 ). The
pest was reported from the Savaran region in Iran
in 1990 (Faghih 1996 ) and Egypt in 1993 (Cox
1993 ). In the same year, the weevil crossed into
Europe, at first into southern Spain (Cox 1993 ;
Barranco et al. 1995 ) and a decade later into Italy
(Longo and Tamburino 2005), many southern
European countries, and Turkey (Malumphy and
Moran 2007 ). Recently, the RPW was detected in
the Dutch Antillies and California, USA (Fig. 1 ;
Ferry 2010 ; Nisson et al. 2010 ).
In the Mediterranean region, the RPW se-
verely damages Phoenix canariensis. Currently,