Genetic Structure and Phylogeny Analysis of Coconut Black Headed Caterpillar, Opisina arenosella Walker (Lepidoptera: Oecophoridae)

The coconut black headed caterpillar, Opisina arenosella is an endemic, frequently outbreaking pest of coconut palm in India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka which feeds on the leaves by scraping the chlorophyll matter, resulting in drying of the leaf and all palm become burnt in appearance. The O. arenosella has been reported to be a pest of coconut palm attaining major pest status in coastal areas of many districts of Kerala. Here we report the partial DNAsequence of cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) of O. arenosella isolated from Parappanangadi of Kerala and its phylogenetic status. The COI partial coding sequence of O. arenosella (GenBank Accession No. KM 216268) showed 2.51% difference over 489 bp nucleotides and 3.44% difference over 163 amino acids to that of O. arenosella (GenBank Accession No.JQ 807264) isolated from Karnataka.