1. Commonly known as Grass Moths or Crambid Snout Moths
2. This family was formaly teated as a subfamily of family Pyralidae in many classifications. The latest review by Munroe & Solis, in Kristensen (1999) retains the Crambidae as a full family.
3. The principal difference is a structure in the ears called the praecinctorium, which joins two tympanic membranes in the Crambidae, and is absent from the Pyralidae.
4. Crambid larvae are typically feed on plants of grasses (family-Poaceae/ Graminae) that contains very important crops (Rice, Corn, Sugarcane etc.). Also host on other food crops such as Bean and Sesame. Therefore most of the Crambids get pest satatus.
6. Subfamily Crambinae taking up closely folded postures on grass-stems where they are inconspicuous or camouflage. Most of other subfamilies include brightly coloured and patterned insects which rest in wing-spread attitudes.
Family Crambidae in Sri Lanka
Family Crambidae is a vey impotant family of Moths to Sri Lanka as we are an agricultural country and cullivate mainly rice. A reasent study conducted in ricefields of Bathalegoda (Kurunegala) Rice Research and Development Institute records five species of moths, one from Noctuidae and four from Pyralidae (Bambaradeniya and Edirisinghe, 2008). Three of them now belongs to Crambidae. Acording to an ongoing study of Lepidoptera assemblages in selected rice field ecosystem of lowland wetzone of Sri Lanka (Aluthwattha in pogress) so far I have sampled 10 species of Crambidae of which five are identified to species level and described below with some species recoded from other habitats of the island.
Species Account |
