Diet acceptance and preference of the edible grasshopper Ruspolia diferens (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)
Date
2018-02-23
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Japanese Society of Applied Entomology and Zoology
Abstract
The edible grasshopper Ruspolia diferens (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) gathered seasonally from the wild is a highly valued
and an economically important edible insect, particularly in East Africa. To reduce the pressure on wild populations, a sus tainable mass production technique needs to be developed. Unfortunately, however, basic biological know-how on feeding
habits of R. diferens is poorly understood, which poses a constraint on the development of mass-rearing technology. Here,
we evaluated the acceptance and feeding preference of R. diferens for 16 cultivated or processed foods using no-choice
and multiple-choice laboratory bioassays. The results indicated that adult R. diferens can eat a wide variety of foods but
does not necessarily accept all the foods equally. Furthermore, our experiments showed that R. diferens has high ability
to select diet among those available. The order of decreasing preference was wheat bran > germinated fnger millet > rice
seed head > fnger millet seed head > chicken feed egg booster > sorghum seed head. Finally, our study indicated that sex
and color morph are not associated with the order of acceptance and preference of diets in R. diferens. These results show
potential foods that could be utilized for developing future mass-rearing methods for R. diferens.
Description
Keywords
African edible bush cricket , Artifcial food , Feeding test , Insect rearing , Uganda, Uganda