Abstract

The red hairy caterpillar has been recorded as a very serious past of the dry crops in most of the rainfed tracts of the Madras State, for the past five decades. It occurs freely on the red sandy loam areas. Despite its polyphagous habits, the insect shows a marked partiality for groundnut on which the destruction wrought is often severe. Commencing from the earlier rains, a majority of the adult moths emerge during the early stages of the crop and the emergences may be spread over about half a dozen batches. The damage is at its worst when the caterpillars are two to three weeks old. In some cases, there is a second brood, presumably from the short cycle larvae, the adults emerging two or three months later, during the North-east monsoon rains. The essential prerequisite for the mass emergences is the receipt of copious showers, which are necessarily followed by the bountiful supply of food material for the progeny.

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