Maruca vitrata
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
Maruca vitrata is a pantropical insect pest of leguminous crops like pigeon pea, cowpea, mung bean and soybean. Its common names include the maruca pod borer, bean pod borer, soybean pod borer, mung moth, and the legume pod borer. The species was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1787.
It can cause losses of 20–80% on the harvests of cowpeas. Its feeding sites on plants are flower buds, flowers and young pods. In some cases early instars feed on flower peduncles and young stems. Some parasitoids have been shown to serve as a biological control for Maruca vitrata. Parasitoid wasps families include Braconidae and Ichneumonidae; some parasitoid flies in the Tachinidae are also natural enemies of the moth. M. vitrata prefers to lay its eggs on the flowering bodies of the cowpea plant. Efforts have been made to deter M. vitrata from reproducing on the plant ranging from pesticides to a chemical specifically designed to sterilize the moth. Genetically modified cowpeas has been developed to express the cry protein from Bacillus thuringiensis, which is toxic to lepidopteran species, particularly to the pod borer. This technology have... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brownsberg Nature Park | 🇸🇷 Suriname | |
| 2 | Gorongosa National Park | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 3 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Ranomafana National Park | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 5 | Doi Inthanon National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 6 | Main Ridge Forest Reserve | 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago | |
| 7 | Podocarpus National Park | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 8 | Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 9 | Daintree National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 10 | Sinharaja Forest Reserve | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 11 | Serra dos Órgãos National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 12 | Manu National Park | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 13 | Lamington National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 14 | Kinabalu Park | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 15 | Tambopata National Reserve | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 16 | Taroko National Park | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | |
| 17 | Arenal Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 18 | La Amistad International Park (Panama) | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 19 | Tapantí-Macizo de la Muerte National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 20 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vijayawada | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Kathmandu | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 3 | Vadodara | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Dehradun | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Bengaluru | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Antananarivo | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 7 | Ahmedabad | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Dhaka | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 9 | Hyderabad | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Prayagraj | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Mung Bean Moth sighting in Kruger National Park on a given day, based on 8 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 472nd most-seen of the 748 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and August
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Mung Bean Moth in Kruger National Park on a given day, against under 5% in July and September–May, the lowest months. Those are among Kruger National Park's driest months, with about 5 mm of rain a month against 110 mm in February.
Between 7 and 10 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Mung Bean Moth sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is mostly seen at night.
20th of 20
Of the 20 parks where we can rate Mung Bean Moth sightings, Kruger National Park ranks 20th at under 5%. The best odds are in Brownsberg Nature Park (Suriname, about 40%), Gorongosa National Park (Mozambique, about 30%) and Kanha National Park (India, about 20%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Crambidae
The closest relatives of the Mung Bean Moth that you can see in Kruger National Park (family Crambidae, Crambid Snout Moths) are Jasmine Moth (about 10%), Hawaiian Beet Webworm Moth (about 10%) and Measured Pearl (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Mung Bean Moth is recorded against all the insects logged in Kruger National Park (8 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
