Cigarette Beetle Category: OLI Minimum Life Cycle: 19 days. Distribution: Worldwide; principally stored tobacco products, can be secondary on other produce. Biology: Eggs - About 100 per female laid on produce. Larvae - Feeding is responsible for damage; developmental period much affected by food source. Pupae - Form within produce. Adults - Non feeding; live two to four weeks. Cigarette Beetle (Lasioderma serricorne). The cigarette beetle, an Anobiid beetle, appears to prefer tobacco, but will develop on wheat flower, seeds, and many other dried plant materials. Internal symbionts aid in converting relative non nutritive materials to suitable food. It has been a serious pest of the tobacco industry, but is now controlled by insect growth regulators (IGRs) and pheromone traps. The insect is found worldwide (Figure 20). (Slide and top caption courtesy of ICI Americas, Inc.)

Figure 20. Cigarette beetle.

Index for the Interpretive Line Slides for Insects Chapter 13, Stored Product Management E-912, Stored Product Management Main Home Page P*E*A*R*L (OCES Online Publications) Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources Oklahoma State University