Abstract
In the summer of 1997, larvae of the oriental beetle, Blitopertha orientalis, with milky disease were collected from a turf field in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Characteristic footprint-shaped sporangia containing a spore and a parasporal body were isolated from the larval hemolymph. Examination of the bacteriological characteristics of this strain revealed that it was unable to grow in 2% NaCl, was susceptible to vancomycin, and had two plasmids, of about 9.8 and 5.5 kb. The sequence of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene (16S rDNA) of this strain was more homologous with that of Paenibacillus (Bacillus) lentimorbus ATCC 14707T than those of the most famous, traditional American culture, Paenibacillus (Bacillus) popilliae ATCC 14706T and NRRL B-4081. From homology of the 16S rDNA, this strain was identified as P. lentimorbus, and named strain ‘Semadara’. The sequence of strain Semadara was highly homologous with those of three Japanese isolates of B. popilliae. Strain Semadara also infected four other scarabaeids: Anomala cuprea, Anomala rufocuprea, Phyllopertha diversa, and Popillia japonica. When second or third stadium larvae of each of the four scarabaeids were inoculated with sporangia of strain Semadara at a concentration of 1.5×108 sporangia/cup, most of the larvae died 2–4 weeks after inoculation.
