author(s)
Amna Amir Khan

abstract
Stored grains are predominant food all over the world, so the contagious effects on grains cannot be ignored. This study will help to examine the incidence and transmission of mycotoxic fungi in grains through insect pests. Majorly Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier, Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae), Tribolium castaneum (Herbst, Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae), and Rhyzopertha dominica (Fabricius, Coleoptera, Bostrichidae) are involved. Stored grain insects enormously preferred to contaminate the stored commodities through their feeding preference, their body fragments, and chemical excretion and gave massive contamination to a storage system. Both coleopteran and lepidopteran pests contributed to significant losses in grain commodities. Grains get affected by decreasing their nutritious level and cannot maintain the standard quality of the food according to markets. These pests also involved to cause serious health hazard diseases in terms of producing aflatoxins, mycotoxins fumonisins, and ochratoxin in stored commodities which causes severe chronic diseases. Flour manufacturing areas are at risk and in danger of contamination with mycotoxins. In the atmosphere of storage areas, insects are highly attracted to the odors emitted from deteriorating food such as damaged grains, which is an important clue for host location by insects. Adult populations of stored grain insects collectively move towards the odor of aflatoxin-producing fungi in grains and play a vital role in contaminating them. Therefore, major cereal crops are badly affected due to the occurrence of mycotoxin and aflatoxins-producing fungi and enhancing the durability of stored grain insects. This study concluded possible transmission factors of mycotoxic fungi by stored grain insects which could disturb the salubrious state of human beings and animals through carcinogenic diseases.