''Omiodes blackburni'', the coconut leafroller, is a species of
moth in the family
Crambidae. It is
endemic to the Hawaiian islands of
Kauai
Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...
,
Oahu,
Molokai
Molokai , or Molokai (), is the fifth most populated of the eight major islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian Islands archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is 38 by 10 miles (61 by 16 km) at its greatest length an ...
,
Maui
The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...
,
Lanai
Lanai ( haw, Lānai, , , also ,) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple pl ...
and
Hawaii. The species was first described by
Arthur Gardiner Butler in 1877.
Recorded food plants include ''
Cocos nucifera'', but it occasionally also feeds on ''
Pritchardia
The genus ''Pritchardia'' (family Arecaceae) consists of between 24 and 40 species of fan palms (subfamily Coryphoideae) found on tropical Pacific Ocean islands in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tuamotus, and most diversely in Hawaii. The generic name ho ...
'' (including ''
Pritchardia pacifica''),
banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...
and introduced
palms.
Young larvae feed gregariously on the underside of the leaf of their host plant protected by a thin web of silk. At first they eat the substance of the leaf and leave the opposite epidermis. They soon scatter more or less, and make hiding places by fastening together the lower edges of coconut leaflets. Often several caterpillars can be found in the same place. As they become slightly larger, they eat the whole substance, eating from the edge, and not leaving the epidermis. When the leaflet is mostly eaten, they migrate to other leaflets. Larvae are full grown in about four weeks from hatching. Full-grown larvae are 32–35 mm long and dull greenish, with two dorsal whitish lines.
Pupation takes place in a slight
cocoon in the caterpillar's retreat. The
pupa is 15–19 mm long and light to dark brown according. The pupal period lasts 11–13 days.
External links
*
*
Insects of Hawaii*
blackburni
Moths described in 1877
Endemic moths of Hawaii
{{Omiodes-stub