contact toxicity and chemical composition of essential oil of acantholimon scorpius

Background: plumbaginaceae plants family is a valuable natural insecticidal compound. this research focused on contact toxicity and chemical composition of essential oil obtained from acantholimon scorpus. methods: the essential oil from the aerial parts of a. scorpius was extracted by hydrodistillation method and tested for their toxicity against oryzeaphilus mercator (coleoptera: silvanidae) and tribolium castaneum (coleoptera: tenerbrionidae). chemical compounds of the essential oil was analyzed by the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (gc-ms) and gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (gc-fid). results: the essential oil showed toxic effect on tested insects. this oil showed 90.0% mortality of o. mercator and 85.2% mortality of t. castaneum at a dose of 12 μl /l air after 48h of exposure. the constituents of this oil were identified, representing more than 82.9% of the total essential oil composition. hexadecanoic acid, tetrahydrogeranyl acetone and oleic acid were the main compounds of the essential oil. conclusion: according to the result the essential oil of a. scorpius showed a noticeable insecticidal activity in contact toxicity model.