Morphological and electrophoretic differences between various patterns of Egyptian red palm weevils, rhynchophorous ferrugineus

Abstract EN

The current research studied the effect of different places from Qalubia – Egypt on the morphology of red palm weevils as well as total protein and catalase profile.

The weevils collected from the same governorate were divided into several groups with different morphology.

The collected weevils were divided into eight groups according to the variation in position of spots present on dorsal surface of adult’s thorax, and the different polymorphism of ventral surface (resulting from the spread of orange and black color at different rates and forms).

The spots varied in number from 4 to 10.

The obtained electrophoretic patterns are correlated with these differences as shown in sample two.

It has a unique types of protein with Mwt 43.78 and 10.99 KDa., accompanied by the rate of flow (Rf.) 0.36 and 0.84, respectively.

The similarity index reached 100% between the samples six, seven and eight while its minimum value was 87% between the samples one and two.

It can be concluded that, there are different red palm weevil strains in the same governorate which differ in morphological shape as well as catalase and protein profile.

These strains variation may be the reason for different degrees of response to various control methods.