The cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera and the oriental tobacco budworm H. assulta are sibling species, both being important agricultural pests. Morphologically, the two insects are almost indistinguishable at the egg, larval and pupal stages. One of the big challenges in the study of these insects, in particular in integrated pest management, is a timely and dependable identification of these insects at their early stages of development. Here, we report a H. armigera-specific nuclear DNA marker, and demonstrate that it can be employed to reliably discriminate between 1-1. armigera and 11. assulta by simple polymerase chain reaction amplification experiment.
