椰心叶甲和水椰八角铁甲的形态学鉴定

Brontispa longissima (Gestro) and Octodonta nipae (Maulik), two serious pests of plam plants in south China, are morphologically similar and cannot easily be distinguished, which makes it difficult to quarantine and research them. To accurately identify them, we examined and compared their morphological characters and particular microsatellite loci. Morphological characters of adults, eggs, larvae and pupae of each species were analyzed, which showed that partial morphological features (arrangement and surface of eggs, body color of adult, pronotum, abdomen, male external genitalia ,and so on) and body size (length and width )are significantly different. These results should be useful for species identification and research on occurrence and damage of those two invasive insects .