A stem borer of egg-plant, Oberea trigonalis Breuning, 1950 (Cerambycidae: Lamiinae): biological notes and host plant records : short communication

The long-horn beetle, Oberea trigonalis Breuning, 1950, is one of more than 240 known species of the cosmopolitan genus Oberea Mulsant, 1939. About 50 species have been described from the Afrotropical Region (Breuning 1960, 1961, 1962; Adlbauer 2001). Oberea trigonalis is a southern African species, known to occur in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe (Veiga Ferreira 1966; Adlbauer 2001), and collected in Zambia (J. Sudre, pers. comm.). Until recently, nothing was known about its biology (Duffy 1957, 1980; Visser 2009). This species was observed damaging eggplant (aubergine or brinjal), Solanum melongena L. of the family Solanaceae, at Agricultural Research Council - Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Institute (ARC-VOPI) (25°35'S 28°22'E), Gauteng Province, South Africa, for the first time in 2007 (Visser 2009).