Kmentia festiva

Biology. According to LESTON (1969), it is a common species of food- and cocoa-farms in Ghana, being widespread within the forest zone and occasionally very abundant. Most localities may be defined as farmbush, which includes the edges of farms, early fallow after food-farming operation, and the more mature regeneration stage usually styled secondary forest. However, it was also collected in the coastal shrub belt and even dry coastal grassland in Ghana (LESTON 1969). According to MAYNÉ & GHESQUIÈRE (1934), the species is common at Mayumbe (Democratic Republic of Congo) in fields of sweet potatos, less frequently in cotton fields. GOLDING (1927) reported adults feeding on fruits of Mallotus oppositifolius (Euphorbiaceae) at Ibadan, Nigeria, in October (larvae were not observed). The species is often abundant on the same host plant in Ghana too, where the larvae and adults feed on the small green fruits, their warning coloration making them easily spotted. However, according to MAYNÉ & GHESQUIÈRE (1934), the species is zoophytophagous (in original as régime mixte), attacking various Hemiptera. AULMANN (1912) collected it frequently together with species of the genus Dysdercus Guérin-Méneville, 1831 (Pyrrhocoridae). LESTON (1969) noted the common co-occurrence of K. festiva with Ph. analis and Ph. melanoptera, all three species exploiting the same parts of the same host plant at the same time. In Ghana, adults of K. festiva have been captured in every month of the year, but abundance varies greatly (LESTON 1969). SOUTHWOOD (1961) recorded K. festiva from an ultra-violet light trap at Tafo, Ghana, operated in March and April. According to LESTON (1969), adults mate in Ghana at least between early March and mid-April (and perhaps from January on); the new generation is responsible for the light trap peak: this suggest large-scale movement of the new adults (LESTON 1969, GIBBS & LESTON 1970). Larvae are seldomly seen after the end of May. The adults probably survive until about next March, and they are probably mainly diurnal in habits. Arrivals to light take place between 19.00 hours and midnight. The warning colouration pattern is efficient in so far as large feeding aggregations occur, but K. festiva is preyed upon by a large, green mantid species, Sphodromantis lineola (Burmeister, 1838) (LESTON 1969). The flight activity and its relationship with development of internal female reproductive organs was studies in Ivory Coast by DUVIARD (1975).