A Study on the Food Habit of Ericerus pela (Chavannes)

Considering the food habit of Ericerus pela (Chavannes), specialists and researchers at home and abroad believe it is a limited or oligop-hagous feeder. However, on the basis of the former researches in this field, we have done further researches in China and found out that this is not true. Our investigations have revealed that E. pela lives on 45 species of host plants which belong to 9 genuses of 6 families: Ligustrum, Fraxinus, Syringa and ChionanthusM of Oleaceae; Castanopsis of Fagaceae; Hibiscus of Malvaceae; Vitex of Verbenaceae; Rhus of Anacardiaceae and Ilex of Aquif-oliaceae. According to this, we think E. pela to be a generalized or euryp-hagous feeder. The application of the term oligophagy to it is not resonable and should be corrected. As a scientific breakthrough, our discovery is of great significance to the development of white wax production in China.