There was a great variation in insecticide susceptibilities among field and laboratory populations of the beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua (Hiibner). Unselected laboratory population, which had been reared for 6-7 generations in our laboratory without exposure to insecticides, was more susceptible than its parental field population in all tested insecticides. Two selected laboratory populations with parathion or deltamethrin showed much higher insecticide tolerance than did the unselected laboratory population in their own selection insecticide. The variation of the insecticide susceptibilities was highly correlated with esterase and acetylcholinesterase activities. Field and the selected laboratory populations had lower acetylcholinesterase activities and higher esterase activities than did the unselected laboratory population. Acetylcholinesterase of the field and the selected laboratory populations had higher Km values than did that of the unselected. In a population, Km values were varied among different developmental stages; acetylcholinesterase of the fifth instar larvae had the highest Km value among those of the other larval stages. Twenty one esterase bands were separated on 6.5% nondenaturing polyacrylamide gel from the whole body extracts of the fifth instar larvae. E2, E7, E8, Ell, El6, and El7 esterase bands were developed more frequently in the insecticides-selected populations than in the unselected population. These results suggest that the variation of insecticide susceptibilities of the beet armyworm includes both biochemical mechanisms: target site insensitivity and enhanced activity of detoxification enzyme.