The influence of temperature in combination with gender, age, and mating status was examined to
determine minimum temperature and percent of cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne (F.) that initiate
flight in a laboratory flight chamber. Tests were conducted on temperatures between 17.5 C and 37.5 C
at intervals of 2.5 C.We found that flight initiation of L. serricorne is highly dependent on environmental
temperature, gender, age and mating status of individuals. The minimum detectable temperature at
which all categories of males (virgin young, virgin old, mated young and mated old) initiated flight was
22.5 C, while virgin young, virgin old, mated young and mated old females were observed to initiate
flight at 25, 22.5, 25, and 27.5 C, respectively. Young virgin males and older virgin females had the
highest percentage of flight initiation among all categories of their gender and thus the greatest probability
of being detected. No flight initiation is predicted for males at temperatures below 19.7 C, thus,
environmental temperature should be strongly considered when interpreting pheromone monitoring
programs in food storage