Responses of Japanese giant looper male moth to synthetic sex pheromone and related compounds

The Japanese giant looper, Ascotis selenaria cretacea, is a serious defoliator of tea gardens in Japan. In Mie Prefecture male moths were dose-dependently attracted to rubber septa baited with 0.1-10.0 mg of the sex pheromone component (Z,Z)-6,9-cis-3,4-epoxynonadecadiene. Monitoring by pheromone traps showed three flight periods (June, July, and August-September). A septum with a I-mg dose was still active after exposure for over three months in the field, but the number of males captured by the old lure was one fifth of that captured by a fresh lure. The parent 3,6,9-triene, a minor pheromonal component, showed a synergistic effect on male attraction when mixed with the pheromonal epoxydiene at a very low ratio, but the 1 : 1 mixture hardly captured any male moths. Attraction was also effectively inhibited by the positional isomers (6,7- and 9,10-epoxydienes), which exhibited rather strong electrophysiological activities on the male antennae. When these related compounds were placed around a trap baited with the synthetic pheromone, the number of captured moths remarkably decreased, which indicates the possibility of using the compounds as a disruptant.