Abstract
The rôle that mills and factories dealing with imported cereals play as a reservoir for new kind of pests was studied in the Kinki district for the period of 1957 to 1960. Thirty six of flour mills, fourty four of barley cleaning mills and ten of feed mixing factories were inspected 113, 135, and 35 times, respectively. Thus each mill or factory was examined at least three times. Mills and factories dealing with domestic cereals only were excluded from the surveys. Apart from these investigations, collection of insects was carried out at 163 different places mainly composed of consumers in Kyoto prefecture in 1956. Flour mills and barley cleaning mills were almost the same in their faunal composition. But they differed a considerable degree from feed factories which are characterized by the high finding frequency of Alphitobius diaperinus, Dermestes spp., Necrobia spp., Tribolium castaneum and Plodia interpunctella.
From the point of view of preventing infestation in the domestic products by newly imported or established pests, the discovery of the species foreign to the domestic fauna is a matter of first importance. They are Alphitophagus bifasciatus, Alphitobius ovata, A. diaperinus, Carpophilus marginellus, Gnathocerus cornutus, Laetheticus oryzae, Necrobia rufipes, N. ruficollis, Palorus subdepressus, Tribolium confusum, and Anagasta kuehniella. Secondly, there are other species that are found in both mills and farm-storages, but their propagation is much more favored by the special condition of mills than in farm-storages. They are Attagenus megatoma, Cryptolestes spp., Carpophilus hemipterus, Dermestes spp., Lasioderma serricorne, Palorus ratzeburgi, Rhizopertha dominica, Sitophilus sasakii, Tenebrio obscurus, Tribolium castaneum, Cadra cautella, Homalopsycha agglutinata, and Pyralis farinalis.
In conclusion, it is important to employ the method appropriate to the economic status of the species in order to prevent their further spread into farm-storages as well as mills that are yet free from the foreign pests.
