Cossus spoil-wood

The Cossus spoil-wood ( Cossus cossus L.; synonym: Trypanus cossus ) is a Insecte Lépidoptères, of the Cossidés, whose Larve develops in the Bois trunk several species of fruit trees and forest gasolines.

Description

The adult insect is a large moth, from 70 to 80 mm approximately of scale. The wing S beige, former are decorated dark, sinuous transverse lines. This coloring makes it possible the butterfly to pass unperceived on the trunk of the tree-hosts during the day. The relatively massive body is hairy. The antennas are feathery and the atrophied horn.

The larva is a caterpillar 100 mm length approximately to the brownish red body with the top, yellow clear on the sides. The head is black. It emits a strong vinegar odor.

Biology

The butterflies, night, appear at the beginning of summer, of at the end of June mid-August. The females lay their eggs in the cracks of the bark of various trees. The young caterpillars hatch after two weeks of incubation and penetrate under the bark and start to dig galleries of oval section until the autumn. Next spring, it drill their galleries in wood, outside rejecting waste, sawdust and excrements which accumulate with the foot of the tree in reddish masses. They hibernate a second winter in the galleries and are nymphosent next spring. They often leave the front shaft the nymphose. The biological cycle is thus spread out over two years complete.

This species attacks many trees, fruit-bearing (Pommier, Poirier, Cerisier, Prunier…), but also the Oak, the Beech, the Chestnut, the maple, the Lime, etc

The fruit trees are most sensitive, in particular the older subjects at which the Sève circulates badly. The attack of Cossus spoil-wood often results in a brutal drying of the tree.

Natural enemies

Some Oiseau X destroy the caterpillars.
the larvae of certain insects ( Ichneumonidae ) parasitize the caterpillars.
the chrysales are parasitized by a mushroom ( Cordiceps militaris ).

Means of fight

It is advised to burn the trees and the branches infested in winter before the life begins again.

See too

List of the ravageurs of the crop plants
link: http://aramel.free.fr/INSECTES38.shtml

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