Abstract: The relationship between utilization of triglyceride and glycogen and sustained flight in the moths of cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera was investigated in the laboratory. It was found that the triglyceride was the main stored energy substance for flight, its content in a newly emerged individual was 3.6365 mg/moth, while thecontent of glycogen was 0.3658 mg/moth. With feeding sugar in adults, they increased to 6. 5707 mg on the fourth day and 2.3500 mg on the fifth day, respectively. The content of protein in tethered flight moth changed negligibly, indicating irrelevant to flight activity, while there were negative correlations between the contents of triglyceride and glycogen and flight duration. The flight activities of the 4-day old moths were detected for 66 h by flight mill, the moths flew 37.9943 h and covered a distance of 216. 8650 kmwith an energy consumption of 218.72 J, in which the percentages of triglyceride and glycogen utilized were 85.87% and 14.13%, respectively.

Key words: cotton bollworm, flight, energy substance