Efficacy of cyantraniliprole fly bait against housefly (Musca domestica L.) under laboratory conditions

Novel and effective baits are needed to manage pest housefly populations and avoid the development of insecticide resistance. In this study, we bioassayed the efficacy of ZyroxA (R), a novel fly bait containing a novel 0.5 % cyantraniliprole insecticide, to kill adult houseflies under laboratory conditions. We found that ZyroxA (R) killed a significantly greater proportion of flies than the current competing fly bait, QuickBaytA (R), after a 24-h exposure. The cumulative mortalities of houseflies were up to 96.36 % and 92.57 % for ZyroxA (R) and 78.88 % and 68.76 % for QuickBaytA (R) in no-choice and choice tests, respectively. Our results suggested that there was negligible behavioral resistance to both fly baits but revealed that ZyroxA (R) appeared to work slower than QuickBaytA (R) (at a 3-h exposure, proportionally fewer flies were killed by ZyroxA (R) than by QuickBaytA (R)). Importantly, we found that the efficacy of ZyroxA (R) did not diminish with the age of the bait (up to 90 days old). In actual knockdown time (KDT) feeding bioassay, the results showed that ZyroxA (R) knocked down flies significantly slower (11.97 min for females; 12.30 min for males) than QuickBaytA (R) (1.89 min for females; 2.24 min for males). These results reveal the high efficacy of ZyroxA (R) bait to kill adult flies and suggest that it is a promising slow-action bait for management of houseflies.