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Manatha albipes Moore, hitherto known as a minor pest of palms in India and Sri Lanka, is reported here as an emerging pest of banana and arecanut on a much larger scale from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in South India. The larvae feed on the foliage of banana and arecanut and the stem of arecanut by scraping the tissue and cause severe drying and defoliation. In this paper, life stages of the pest are briefly described with illustrations for the first time. Diagnostic characters of the adults, including genitalia, are illustrated and compared with those of M. taiwana (Sonan), its closest related species. The bagworm pest on banana, commonly identified as Kophene cuprea Moore by economic entomologists, was found to be a misidentification of M. albipes. In view of the extreme external similarity of M. albipes and M. taiwana, COI sequencing of M. albipes collected from arecanut and banana was done and the DNA sequence data was found to be a useful diagnostic tool for this species. COI sequences of M. albipes and M. taiwana showed differences in 53 nucleotides and M. albipes had 9.5% divergence with M. taiwana, confirming that they are distinct species. Additional host plants of M. albipes are listed. Natural enemies associated with M. albipes including three parasitoids (two species of Brachymeria (Chalcididae) and one unidentified tachinid) and one pentatomid predator (Eocanthecona furcellata (Wolff)) are reported for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]