216 P. R. Shashank et al.
Honda and Mitsuhashi ( 1989 ) studied the mor-
phological comparison between the FFT and PFT
of C. punctiferalis. Nine quantitative characters
were morphometrically evaluated on the male
genitalia and female ovipositor. Male moths of
the two types were easily distinguishable by the
angular and linear characters on the valve and teg-
ument. Differences were also observed between
mandible, labrum, epipharynx, and pinacular of
larvae, and cremaster of pupae. Based on these
morphological differences in adults, larvae, and
pupae, Honda and Mitsuhashi ( 1989 ) determined
PFT of the yellow peach moth as a segregated
species of the genus Conogethes. Until 2006 C.
pinicolalis was deposited under C. punctiferalis.
Now C. pinicolalis represents a new species of
Conogethes and shares similar but not the same
wing patterns with the other species. The present
species could be identified by the following char-
acters: the second segment of labial palp almost
black; hind tibia and hind tarsus with large tufts
of fuscous scales (Inoue and Yamanaka 2006 ).
In 2013 Vasudev Kammar studied the genetic
diversity of Conogethes species infesting cas-
tor (CBR) and cardamom (CBE) based on COI,
ITSI, and ITST gene. The multiple alignment
was obtained on COI gene and most number of
substitutions were (up to 35) found on turmeric
population with castor population (up to 3). Pair-
wise genetic distance analysis indicated that high
genetic divergence and phylogenetic analysis of
aligned Mt COI gene sequence of Conogethes
species breeding on castor and cardamom. The
NJ tree was conducted based on all the 15 DNA
bar code using BOLD analysis tool. The pair wise
genetic distance analysis between the individu-
als varied from 0.000 to 0.074, indicating high
genetic divergence. The maximum intraspecific
pairwise distance in CBR was 0.022 compared
to maximum intraspecific distance of CBE 0.003.
The nearest neighbor distance between CBR and
CBE was 5.02 % indicating wide genetic variabil-
ity between two populations. This suggests that
both populations differed from each other, as evi-
dent from NJ tree where they form two different
clades. This may due to two species preferring to
utilize host plant in two diverse habitats (Fig. 3 ).
The NJ phylogenetic tree was constructed based
on ITS1 and ITS2 gene sequence, obtaining dif-
ferent locations and different host plant showing
sub branching and felt two clades that also indi-
cated the divergence of the two population breed
on castor and cardamom (Figs. 4 and 5 ).Table 2 DNA sequencing of Conogethes species. (Source: http://www.boldsystem.org/views/speciessummary.php))
Sl. No. Species Specimens Sequences Bar codes (COI of > 500 bp)
1 Conogethes diminutiva 2 2 1
2 Conogethes ersealis 3 3 3
3 Conogethes evaxalis 9 8 8
4 Conogethes haemactalis 3 3 3
5 Conogethes nr. diminutiva 1 1 1
6 Conogethes nr. haemactalis 3 3 3
7 Conogethes parvipunctalis 1 1 1
8 Conogethes pluto 12 12 12
9 Conogethes punctiferalis 67 26 26
10 Conogethes punctiferalis PS2 1 0 0
11 Conogethes semifascialis 11 8 8
12 Conogethes sp. 1 0 0
13 Conogethes sp.ANIC 1 2 1 1
14 Conogethes sp. ANIC 2 3 3 3
15 Conogethes sp.ANIC 3 1 0 0
16 Conogethes sp. complex 4 3 3
17 Conogethes tharsalea 5 4 4