Pieris brassicae
(large cabbage white)

Preferred Scientific Name

• Pieris brassicae (Linnaeus, 1758)

Preferred Common Name

• large cabbage white

Other Scientific Names

• Mancipium brassicae Linnaeus
• Papilio brassicae Linnaeus
• Pontia brassicae Linnaeus
• Pontia chariclea Stephens

International Common Names

• English: cabbage caterpillar; cabbage white; cabbage worm; great white butterfly; great white cabbage butterfly; large garden white butterfly; large white butterfly; large white cabbage butterfly; white butterfly, large
• Spanish: aruga de la col; gran mariposa blanca de la col; gusano de las hojas de hortaliza; oruga verde de la col
• French: grand papillon blanc du chou; piéride du chou
• Portuguese: lagarta da couve

Local Common Names

• Denmark: kalsommerfugl, stor; stor kalsommerfugl
• Finland: kaaliperhonen
• Germany: Grosser Kohlweissling; Weissling, Grosser Kohl-
• Israel: lavnin hakruv hagadol
• Italy: cavolaia; cavolaia maggiore
• Netherlands: Grote Koolwitje; Koolwitje, grote
• Norway: kalsommerfugl, stor
• Sweden: kalfjaeril
• Turkey: lahana kelebegi

EPPO code

• PIERBR (Pieris brassicae)

• Domain: Eukaryota
•     Kingdom: Metazoa
•         Phylum: Arthropoda
•             Subphylum: Uniramia
•                 Class: Insecta
•                     Order: Lepidoptera
•                         Family: Pieridae
•                             Genus: Pieris (Lepidoptera)
•                                 Species: Pieris brassicae

Eggs

Bright yellow, bottle-shaped, 1.4 mm high, ribbed vertically and laid upright in clusters of 40-100. Change to bright orange prior to hatching.

Larvae

Newly-emerged larvae are yellow with shiny black heads. After the first moult the colour changes to yellowish-green with yellow lines running the length of the body. On the back and sides there are numerous hair-topped tubercles, which give the larva a rugose texture.

Fully-fed larvae are 45 mm long, basically olive-green (more greyish dorsally) with a pronounced yellow dorsal line, either side of which are dorso-lateral black spots and squares. The whole body is covered with fine, hair-bearing tubercles, many of which are also black. The head is bluish-grey with black patches.

Pupae

Length 20 mm. Pale green (non-diapausing) or greyish-white (diapausing) and dotted with black and yellow markings. The ventral surface is flattened. There is a lateral ridge along either side, and a similar ridge extends from the forward-pointing head up over the head, thorax and abdomen. Several blunt spikes are also found on the abdomen. Found on walls, fencing, tree-trunks and stones, or under roofs and branches, and attached to the substrate by a silken girdle and pad. The final colour matches the substrate.

Adults

Wingspan 55-70 mm, with females being larger than the males. The wing uppersides of both sexes are usually gleaming white, with a pronounced black tip to the forewing. This is augmented in the female (which has a larger black tip) by a pair of post-discal black spots, with a black smear along the inner margin below the lower spot. The undersides of both sets of wings are pale yellow dusted with grey, except for the centre and base of the forewings, which are white. In females, the black dots of the forewings also appear on the undersides. The head, thorax and abdomen are black with grey hair-like scales.

There is a little variation: in ab. flava the ground colour is sulphur-yellow; in ab. carnea it is tinged pink; in ab. coerulea the yellow of the hindwing underside is replaced by bluish green; in ab. striata Rocci the apical black patch is continued inwards as rays along the veins; and ab. albinensis is devoid of any black scales (Maitland-Emmet and Heath, 1989).

In the subspecies from the Canary Islands (P. brassicae cheiranthi), the black markings are enlarged, with the underside of the hindwings and underside forewing tips being bright yellow.

P. brassicae catoleuca from the Levant differs from the nominate subspecies in being larger, in having the black spots of the forewing undersides slightly co-joined by a bridge of black scaling in the female and in lacking the black scaling on the undersides of the hindwings.

P. brassicae is an oligophagous insect that feeds on members of family Brassicaceae (Lal and Ram, 2004; Younas et al., 2004; Hwang et al., 2008; Hasan and Ansari, 2010; 2011). Damage to cabbage heads has been reported to be as high as 70-98% (Prasad, 1961; 1963).

Hasan and Ansari (2010; 2011) reported P. brassicae (L.) to be one of the most destructive and cosmopolitan pests of cruciferous crops in India, where it causes 40% of the damage to cruciferous crops per year. In Himachal Pradesh, India, P. brassicae completes three generations in a year, the duration of which vary from 32-64 days. The first two generations during February-May inflict severe damage to cabbage and cauliflower. High temperatures and more sunshine hours, accompanied by low relative humidity and rainfall, favour population build-ups (Sood and Bhalla, 1996).

In a field study in 1991-92 at Upper Shillong, Meghalaya, India with cabbage cv. Pride of India, 68.5% of the marketable yield was affected by attack by larvae of P. brassicae. Larval population and yield correlation indicated that the damage was significant 22-25 days and 40-47 days after sowing (Thakur, 1996).

It was estimated that at Izmir, Turkey, damage caused by P. brassicae to cabbages in 1985 and 1986 averaged 40.45%, and to cauliflowers 27.06% (Atalay and Hincal, 1992).

In Sierra Nevada, western USA, Shapiro (1975) reported that Pieris spp. were serious pest of cruciferous crops and caused 41% annual losses in crucifers.