Catching male adults of the oak borer Platypus quercivorus (Coleoptera: Platypodidae) with towels

Abstract

We developed a new method to catch adults of the oak borer Platypus quercivorus, the vector of the Japanese oak wilt disease, by covering the entry holes bored on the trunk surface with a wetted face towel. We set towels on the base of three trees attacked by the borer from October to December and caught 13.3 adults per square meter of towel per day per tree. We observed that adults bored new tunnels into the towels extending from their entry holes and were trapped. The sex ratio was extremely biased to males and the rate of the male parents to all male adults captured in December was 24.0%. These results suggest that the reproductive success of P. quercivorus can be reduced by extracting male parents before winter with towels.