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April, '13J VRICH: MEXICAN SUGAR CANE INSECTS 247 NOTES ON SOME MEXICAN SUGAR CANE INSECTS FROM SANTA LUCRECIA, STATE OF VERA CRUZ, INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF THE SUGAR CANE TINGID FROM MEXICO By F. W. URICH, Entomologist Board of Agriculture, Trinidad and OTTO HEIDEMANN The sugar plantation on which I spent the months of August, Sep- tember and October last year is situated about twelve miles from Santa Lucrecia on the Coatzacoalcos River. There are about 3,000 acres of canes under cultivation which were growing in a most luxuri- Downloaded from ant way and most of which were ratooning for the seventh time. (See Plate 7.) The climate of that part of Mexico was quite tropical and the fauna and flora reminded me often of those of Trinidad and northern South America. On the whole there were few insects that did much damage to the canes, in fact there was only one that called http://jee.oxfordjournals.org/ for serious attention and that was the Cercopid, Tomaspis postica Walk. It is reported that this insect has been known as a pest to grass lands of the State of Vera Cruz since 1880 and in 1903 was observed attacking sugar cane at Tantoyuca. The natural food plant of To- maspis postica consists of grasses of several species, especially those growing in damp clay soils; from the grass it has spread to canes and there by the combined activity of the nymphs on the roots and the adults on the leaves, causes considerable damage when numerous by guest on June 9, 2016 and unchecked. Luckily it is controlled naturally by a parasitical fungus which also attacks 1Tomaspis varia Fabr. in Trinidad, and which has been determined as Metarrhizium am:soplire Metschnikoff. In some places a species of Empusa was also killing a good many of the adults. Unlike Fulgorids these Cercopids do not appear to have any egg parasites or parasites on the nymphs, at least I did not find any and have not been able to discover any records of such. A Re- o duviid bug, Castolus plagiat'icollis Stal. (det. Heidemann) was very common in the fields where T. postica was numerous and many adults were to be seen carrying. around these Cercopids impaled on their proboscis. Unfortunately the eggs of Castolus were attacked by a ~pecies of Telenomus (det. Crawford). The old cane pest, Diatrcea saccharalis, was not wanting and there was a second stalk borer pres- ent which Dr. H. G. Dyar has determined as Diatrrea grandiosella Dyar. It cannot be said that either of these were very serious pests. It was not an easy matter,to find egg masses of these moths in the 'In my "Notes on some insect pests affecting the sugar cane" Journal of Ec. Ent. Vol. 4, p. 225, I refer wrongly to this insect as T. postica. 248 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 5 cane fields, but the only two that were found were parasitized; D. saccharalis by Trichogramma pretiosa Riley (det. Howard) and D. grandiosella by a Telenomus sp. (det. Crawford). Dr. Dyar has been good enough to draw up the following descrip- tion of the larva of Diatrrea grandiosella Dyar:- Head rounded quadrate, narrowing a little belowj clypeus highj para-clypeal pieces reaching about two-thirds the height of the front; pale orange-brown; a little darker on the vertex, median l1nd para-clypeal sutures whitish; clypeal sutures dark, mouth black, the color covering the epistoma and bases of maxillroj ocelli with black central dots, a patch of black covering the lower ocelli; labium and palpi pale; a black triangular spot at side of occiput near the middle; setfll rather coarse, pale, without visible tubercles. Body cylindrical, elongate, moderately robust, tapering Downloaded from posteriorly but only slightly so anteriorly. Thoracic feet moderate, pale brownish, like the head with smoky patches before and behind; abdominal feet very short, thick, the crochets in circles, anal feet somewhat longer, their circle of crochets broadly broken behind. Color whitish with a broad purplis).l shaded subdorsal stripe, which is quite faint and blotched in the fully grown larvfll. Tubercles large a.nd conspicuous, blackish brown, I larger than II, IV and V forming a single tubercle, http://jee.oxfordjournals.org/ VII an elongate patch; on the thorax a narrow chitinous band on the posterior edges of joints 3 and 4 dorsally; tubercles Ia and Ib, lIa and nb, III and IV, VI with two setfll. Cervical shield large, contaiJling six setm on each side, pale brown like the head with a pale dividing dorsallinej a small black stain on the lateral margin, otherwise unmarked. Joint 13 rather distinctly divided, its anterior part with the subdorsal tubercles joined over the back by a black stain; anal plate pale reddish brown with three setm on each side, irregularly joined by brown stains, the plate a.ppearing bimaculate." by guest on June 9, 2016 Canes damaged by the Gopher (H eterogeomys hispidu8 Le Conte) called "Tuza" in Mexico often contained larvre of M etamasius seri- ceus Latr. var. carbonarius Chev. (det. Schwarz) but in no case was this beetle observed attacking perfectly healthy canes. When the canes were fermenting, from damage done by Gophers or DiatrC1!a sometimes they were attacked by Xyleborus affinis Eichf. (det. Lt.- Col. Winn Sampson) but this Scolytid was never observed in sound stalks. A Tingid, Leptodictya tabida Champ., which Mr. Heidemann has been good enough to describe and figure was not very numerous, and although it damaged the cane leaves in the characteristic way of this family, it cannot be considered a pest' at all. The grassy spaces between the fields of canes harbored a great many grasshoppers of different species, some did trivial damage to the cane leaves, but were never numerous enough to make their presence felt. Tqe fol- lowing genera were represented: Machrerocera, Treniopoda, Schistocerca and Neoconocephalus. No doubt these grasshoppers are kept in con- trol by natural enemies, among which there were many' insectivorous. birds. The sugar cane leaf serves as food for many caterpillars but at the April. '1:{] JOUHNAL OF ECONOlvlIC ENTOMOLOGY Plate 7 Downloaded from http://jee.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on June 9, 2016 Oxaguena Plantation. Mexican ribbon cane, planted 14 months. April, '13J HEIDEMAN: SUGAR-CANE TINGID 249 time I was there none appeared to be doing any damage. Among. the Lepidoptera that were bred from caterpillars I may mention a Syntomid, Cyanopepla submacula Walk. (det. Dyar). The Skipper Perimeles remus Fabr. was very common in the fields. A few cater- pillars belonging to the genus Cirphis, which commonly eat the un- folding leaf of 'the cane were attacked by the parasite, H orisrnenus urichi Crawford (det. Crawford). From the eggs of an undetermined Fulgorid imbedded in the tissue of a cane leaf, I reared a giant My- marid which turned out to be Cosmocomoidea morrilli Howard (det. Howard). There were numbers of lizards of different species in the fields, which do good work in keeping down insects of all kinds. On reference to Downloaded from Plate 7 it will be readily understood how impossible would be artificial control, such as spraying in a sugar cane field, when canes are any size at all. The only time of the year would be when the caries have just commenced to grow, but then two difficulties crop up, the scant labor supply and the large areas to be treated at one and the http://jee.oxfordjournals.org/ same time. Planters must therefore rely on natural control and in Mexico there is a fair amount of it by insects and fungi. My thanks are due to Dr. Howard and his assistants and to Lt.- Col. 'Winn Sampson for determinations. THE SUGAR-CANE TINGID FROM MEXICO by guest on June 9, 2016 By OTTO HEIDEMANN This neat little hemipterous insect was originally described as M o- J nanthia tabida and figured by Herrich Schaeffer 18~9, habitat Mexico. F, K. Fieber copied Schaeffer's description and figure in his" Mono- graphie der Tingideffi," 1844. Later, about 1900, Dr. G. C. Champion found specimens of this species also in Panama and Guatemala and redescribed and figured the same in the Biologia Centrali-Arnericana, but referred the species to the genus Leptodictya, which had been erected by Stal, 1873, based on some South-American species. Notwithstanding the fact, that, the charact~rs of the species al- ready are well defined, the writer ventures to give a new description more in particulars. Leptodictya tabida (H. Schaeff.) Champion.3 M onanthia tabida Herrich Schaeffer. 1 Monanthia tabida Fieber.2 I Wanzenartigen Insecten, V, p. 86, t. 173, fig. 535. (1839). •En. Monogr. Tingide!e, 1884, p. 70, t. vi, fig. 1. • Bioi. C. Am. II, p. 23, t. 2, fig. 10. (1897-1901)..

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