Scientific Name: Lasioderma serricorne Fabricius

Common Names: Cigarette beetle

Synonyms

Lasioderma testaceum (Duftschmid)

Ptinus serricorne Fabricius

Xyletinus serricorne Fabricius

Taxonomic Position

Class: Insecta

Order: Coleoptera

Family: Anobiidae

Genus: Lasioderma

Species: Lasioderma serricorne

Host Range

Tobacco, cereals and cereal products, Spices (turmeric, chilli powder, coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon, cumin), cocoa beans, oilseed cake, oilseeds, pulses, dried root ginger, dried fruit, sago flour and animal products.

Pest Destructive Stage

Primary as well as secondary pest

Larvae – internal feeders

Adult – short lived, do not feed on commodity

Damage Symptoms

Larvae burrow into the stored products leaving irregular holes. Infested material becomes contaminated with pupal cocoons and the dead bodies of short lived adults. Young larvae are able to locate and enter very small holes in packaging. Mature larvae and adults upon emergence will readily chew through packaging material such as plastic, paper, foil laminate and wooden containers leaving neat round holes.

Identification features

Larva

The larvae are white and scarabaeiform.

Pupa

The pupae are formed inside a pupal cell constructed from fragments of food and waste material.

Adult

• The adult is stoutly oval, 2-2.5 mm long, light brown in colour.
• The elytra are smooth, with very short hairs but without striae.
• The antennae are about half as long as the body and have 11 segments of which the fourth to tenth are serrate.
• When disturbed the adult conceals its head under the large pronotum.

Life Cycle

• Each female lays up to 110 eggs loosely on the commodity. On hatching, the larvae often eat their eggshells.
• At first the larvae are quite active and will move around on, or bore into, the commodity, feeding as they go. They will move much more deeply into a loosely packed commodity than into one that is tightly packed.
• There are 4-6 larval instars. As the larvae grow they become less active and finally they make a pupal cell out of fragments of food and waste materials.
• The pupal stage lasts for about 9 days at 32-35°C.
• The adults live for 2-6 weeks and do not feed.
• The generation time varies between 25 and 120 days depending on temperature, humidity and food.
• This species is not very cold-hardy. Adults are killed by exposure to temperatures of 4°C for 6 days and few eggs survive for 5 days at 0-5°C.

Detection methods 

Adults are attracted to light and are often monitored using light traps. The traps are reported to be most attractive when fitted with UV lights and are often combined with a suction device or a sticky surface.

This beetle may also be trapped by smearing window ledges with oil and by placing sticky translucent paper over windows. Food attractants, including tobacco boiled in linseed oil, yeast cake, and starch and peptone mixture, have been used with some success as have traps baited with the female produced pheromone, serricornin.

X-ray radiography technique can be used to detect hidden larvae infestation.