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The isolation and identification of the cuticular sex-stimulant pheromone of the tsetse Glossina pallidipes Austen (Diptera:Glossinidae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2011

P. G. McDowell
Affiliation:
International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), P.O. Box 30772, Nairobi, Kenya
D. L. Whitehead
Affiliation:
International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), P.O. Box 30772, Nairobi, Kenya
M. F. B. Chaudhury
Affiliation:
International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), P.O. Box 30772, Nairobi, Kenya
W. F. Snow
Affiliation:
ICIPE Muhaka Field Station, P.O. Box 80804, Mombasa, Kenya
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Abstract

The sex-stimulant contact pheromone present in the cuticle of female tsetse Glossina pallidipes Austen has been extracted with hexane, separated by preparative gas chromatography and identified by mass spectrometry. The aphrodisiac, consisting of 13,17-dimethylpentatriacontane and 15,19-dimethylpentatriacontane, is present in cuticular extracts of 1-week-old females and, in lower amounts, in teneral females but it is almost absent in males of all ages. Full copulatory responses to hexane-washed dead males treated with the two dimethylpentatriacontane isomers were induced in 10–20-day-old adult male G. pallidipes. The practical uses to which this discovery can now be put—towards the mass-rearing and control of G. pallidipes— are discussed in detail.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © ICIPE 1981

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References

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