NEW SEMIOCHEMICALS TO MANAGE TSETSE FLIES.

Rajindar Kumar Saini and Ahmed Hassanali
Int. Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), P.O. Box 30772,Nairobi, Kenya.

Though considerable progress has been made during the past decade orso in developing odour baits for tsetse flies, the baits developed areonly effective for some morsitans group of flies. Even among these flies,the known odour baits are more effective for G. pallidipes. Thesame baits are totally ineffective against other species especially theriverine tsetse. At ICIPE, work is in progress to identify kairomones frommonitor lizards, the preferred hosts of G. fuscipes fuscipes, (arepresentative of the riverine tsetse). We have also found that pheromonesemanating from larvae of tsetse attract gravid females resulting in aggregationof pupae under laboratory conditions. We ar evaluating the potential ofthese pheromones in baiting gravid females. We know that tsetse are veryselective and show clear preferences for feeding. Work is in progress toidentify repellents from non-preferred hosts and from structure activityinformation, as these may be useful to protect animals and humans fromtsetse attack. They could also be useful in conjunction with barrier systems.A new technique has also been developed for selective trapping of bodyvolatiles from preferred and unpreferred animals.