Thiamethoxam is an insecticide

Insecticide

An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...

 in the class of neonicotinoids. It has a broad spectrum of activity against many types of insects.

History

Thiamethoxam was developed by Syngenta

Syngenta

Syngenta AG is a large global Swiss agribusiness company which notably markets seeds and pesticides. Syngenta is involved in biotechnology and genomic research. The company is a leader in crop protection, and ranks third in total sales in the commercial agricultural seeds market. Sales in 2010 were...

 but a patent dispute arose with Bayer

Bayer

Bayer AG is a chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in Barmen , Germany in 1863. It is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and well known for its original brand of aspirin.-History:...

 which already had patents covering other neonicotinoids including imidacloprid

Imidacloprid

Imidacloprid is a nicotine-based, systemic insecticide, which acts as a neurotoxin and belongs to a class of chemicals called the neonicotinoids. Although it is now off patent, the primary manufacturer of this chemical is Bayer CropScience,...

. In 2002 the dispute was settled, with Syngenta paying Bayer $120 million in exchange for worldwide rights to thiamethoxam.

Uses

Thiamethoxam is a systemic insecticide that is absorbed quickly by plants and transported to all parts of the plant, where it acts as a deterrent to insect feeding. It is active in the stomach of the insects, and also through direct contact. The compound blocks the electron transfer between nerve cells, making the insects become paralyzed.

Thiamethoxam is effective against aphid

Aphid

Aphids, also known as plant lice and in Britain and the Commonwealth as greenflies, blackflies or whiteflies, are small sap sucking insects, and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Aphids are among the most destructive insect pests on cultivated plants in temperate regions...

s, thrips

Thrips

Thrips are tiny, slender insects with fringed wings . Other common names for thrips include thunderflies, thunderbugs, storm flies, thunderblights, and corn lice...

, beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

s, centipede

Centipede

Centipedes are arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda of the subphylum Myriapoda. They are elongated metameric animals with one pair of legs per body segment. Despite the name, centipedes can have a varying number of legs from under 20 to over 300. Centipedes have an odd number of pairs of...

s, millipede

Millipede

Millipedes are arthropods that have two pairs of legs per segment . Each segment that has two pairs of legs is a result of two single segments fused together as one...

s, sawflies

Sawfly

Sawfly is the common name for insects belonging to suborder Symphyta of the order Hymenoptera. Sawflies are distinguishable from most other Hymenoptera by the broad connection between the abdomen and the thorax, and by their caterpillar-like larvae...

, leaf miner

Leaf miner

Leaf miner is a term used to describe the larvae of many different species of insect which live in and eat the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths , sawflies and flies , though some beetles and wasps also exhibit this behavior.Like Woodboring beetles, leaf...

s, stem borers and termite

Termite

Termites are a group of eusocial insects that, until recently, were classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera , but are now accepted as the epifamily Termitoidae, of the cockroach order Blattodea...

s.

Thiamethoxam is a moderately toxic substance. In normal use, there are no unacceptable risks involved. The substance is toxic to bees and harmful to aquatic and soil organisms. A metabolite of thiamethoxam in soil is clothianidin

Clothianidin

Clothianidin is an insecticide developed by Takeda Chemical Industries and Bayer AG. Similar to thiamethoxam and imidacloprid, it is a neonicotinoid. Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides which act on the central nervous system of insects with lower toxicity to mammals...

.