Saltatorial leaf‐feeding Thysanoptera (Thripidae: Dendrothripinae) from Australia and New Caledonia, with newly recorded pests of ferns, figs and mulberries

Abstract

Thrips of the subfamily Dendrothripinae that have been observed alive are all remarkably saltatorial.

Molecular Identification Key for Pest Species of <I>Scirtothrips</I> (Thysanoptera: Thripidae)

“…The males of L. piercei and L. nigripennis have simple sensory cones on antennal segments III and IV, and males of L. theobromae have simple sensory cones on antennal segments III and IV (Mound 1999). Males of both L. pictus and L. furcatus have not been recorded (Mound 1999).…”

“…Palabras Clave: thrips; inmaduro; molecular; morfología Leucothrips (Thysanoptera: Thripidae: Dendrothripinae) represents an ill-defined genus of minute white thrips, most similar to the neotropical genus Halmathrips Hood and to the more cosmopolitan Pseudodendrothrips Schmutz (Mound 1999). Currently, Leucothrips consists of 5 species (Mound & Tree 2016).…”

“…The females of Leucothrips pictus Hood, Leucothrips piercei Morgan and Leucothrips nigripennis Reuter can be morphologically distinguished by 3 unique character states: L. nigripennis has uniformly shaded brown forewings, L. pictus has 8 antennal segments, and L. piercei possesses simple sensory cones on antennal segments III and IV (Mound 1999). However, females of the remaining 2 species, Leucothrips furcatus Hood and Leucothrips theobromae Priesner are much more difficult to distinguish, both having 7 antennal segments, unshaded forewings, and forked sensory cones on antennal segments III and IV (Mound 1999). Indeed, morphologically they differ only by the absence or presence, respectively, of a crimson spot between the antennal bases (Hood 1931;Moulton 1933;Bailey 1957;Mound & Tree 2016).…”

“…Priesner (1923) described and illustrated the dorso-lateral abdominal setae of L. theobromae as gradually distally expanded and increasing in length from abdominal segment VII to IX. In contrast, the lateral abdominal setae on L. piercei terminate in minute knobs (Vance 1974) and L. nigripennis possesses slender capitate setae posterolaterally on segments VII to IX (Mound 1999).…”

“…The plant Theobroma cacao L. (Malvaceae) is a host for L. theobromae (Priesner 1923), Capsicum annuum L. (Solanaceae) for L. piercei (Zamar et al 2014), and Pteris cretica L. (Pteridaceae) for L. nigripennis (Mound 1999). Leucothrips pictus seem to be associated with leaves of forest trees and L. nigripennis with ferns (Mound 1999 (Halbert 1996), Albizzia julibrissin Durazz. (Fabaceae) (Diffie & Srinivasan 2010), and Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet (Fabaceae) (Etienne et al 2015).…”