author(s)
Samama Begum Chhabi, Shamima Sultana, Shahriar Zaman, Mohammad Abdullah and Nurul Islam

abstract
Petroleum ether (Pet. ether), chloroform (CHCl₃) and methanol (CH₃OH) extracts of the aerial part, seed, seed pod and roots of Abrus precatorius L. have thoroughly been screened for their insecticidal and repellent activity against the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) adults and cytotoxicity against Artemia salina L. nauplii. The CH₃OH extracts of seed pod found most effective giving LD₅₀ values 0.781, 0.587, 0.386 and 0.314mg/cm², followed by the CH₃OH extracts of roots giving LD₅₀ values 1.277, 0.889, 0.632 and 0.411mg/cm², and the aerial part giving LD₅₀ values 0.584, 0.511, 0.458 and 0.417 mg/cm² all the three for 12, 24, 36 and 48h of exposure respectively; while the seed extracts of Pet. ether and CH₃OH showed the lowest mortality and gave LD₅₀ 0.578 and 0.597 mg/cm² both after 48h of exposure respectively. In case of cytotoxicity, all the extracts responded through brine shrimp lethality assay and the CH₃OH extract of aerial part found most effective giving LC₅₀ values 59.382, 25.836, 12.360 and 1.554ppm after 12, 18, 24 and 30h of exposure respectively. The CHCl₃ extracts of seed and roots showed repellent activity against T. castaneum adults both at 1% (P< 0.01) level of significance, while the other extracts did not show any activity. The results revealed the potentials of A. precatorius to be used in the pest management sector.