author(s)
Nagamandla Ramya Sri and Shantanu Jha

abstract
The present investigation was conducted to study biology and morphometry of Spodoptera litura on tomato leaves. Larvae were brought from field and reared in glass jars by providing tomato leaves at research laboratory, BCKV during 2016-17 at three different temperatures, 20 ⁰C, 25 ⁰C and 30 ⁰C with RH 75 ± 5 %. At 20 ⁰C, total larval period completed in 41.8±3.56 days while it took 25.8 ± 0.67 days and 16.3 ± 0.83 days in 25 ⁰C and 30 ⁰C respectively. Total developmental period completed in 60.4 ± 3.13, 41.6 ± 1.08 and 30.1 ± 1.29 days in 20 ⁰C, 25 ⁰C and 30 ⁰C respectively. As the temperature increased, number of days required for development decreased. The length of different larval instars increased from 3.48 ± 0.08 mm to 36.26 ± 0.24 mm and breadth from 0.3 ± 0.007 mm to 4.1 ± 0.02 starting from first instar to fifth/sixth instar.