Araecerus fasciculatus DeGeer, 1775 ( Coleoptera: Anthribidae)

Description and Biology

It is a cosmopolitan pest, distributed in tropical regions and causing damage to many stored products. It is an important pest of stored coffee and attacks both coffee beans and processed coffee. Its initial attack can occur in the crop, in fruits in phase of drying and persist in the storage.

The adult is a beetle that is light brown to gray or brown in color, shiny and silky hairy. It has three elongated yellowish spots on the elytra, as well as light and dark punctiform spots in poorly defined alignment. This beetle measures about 5 mm long and 3 mm wide and is different from the coffee berry borer for being much larger (Figure 17). Each female can place 130 to 140 eggs, which are placed in the mellow or already dried coffee pulp, in the field or in the barn, from where the larva that feeds on the mucilage hatches and then penetrates the seed. The larvae are white in color, apodas and cylindrical in shape. When fully developed, are approximately 5 mm long and 2.5 mm wide. The pupal stage occurs within the seed, from where the adult emerges through an orifice of about 2 to 3 mm in diameter. Their cycle varies from 46 to 62 days, with about five to eight days until the larvae hatch, 35 to 45 days of larvae to pupae and six to nine days for the emergence of adults. The insect continues its reproduction, when the coffee is left stored for a long time and causes serious damages. It can present from six to seven annual generations (GALLO et al., 2002).

Losses

It damages a part of the dry coffee beans in all its forms: coconut, pulped and processed, being able to cause loss of up to 30% in weight.