Heratythrips sauli

Recognition data

Distinguishing features

Female fully winged. Color of body and legs brownish yellow, antennal segments II–IX brown, fore wings pale with apex darker. Head with three pairs of ocellar setae, pair III arises within the triangle. Antennae 9-segmented, segments with rings of microtrichia, sensoria on III and IV conical. Pronotal posteromarginal setae almost twice as long as discal setae. Fore tarsus without recurved hamus. Fore wing longitudinal veins with widely spaced rows of small setae. Mesonotum with no setae medially. Metanotum reticulate, median setae near posterior margin. Abdominal tergites with transverse lines of sculpture medially, median setae wider apart than their length; tergite VIII posterior margin with a few weak microtrichia laterally. Sternites with three pairs of marginal setae; no discal setae, but sternites with many small microtrichia on disc and on posterior margin.

Related and similar species

This is the only known species in the genus Heratythrips, one of three genera that comprise the family Stenurothripidae. One of these genera, Oligothrips, is known from a single species that is found in California and Oregon. The other genus, Holarthrothrips, comprises four species that live in the flowers of various Phoenix species between the Mediterranean and India.The family name Stenurothripidae is derived from a species, Stenurothrips succineus, that is known only from fossil material.

Taxonomic data

Current valid name

Heratythrips sauli Mound & Marullo

Original name and synonyms

• Heratythrips sauli Mound & Marullo, 1998: 89

Family placement

Stenurothripidae (=Adiheterothripidae)

Biological data

Life history

Not known

Host plants

Recorded only from two females collected on Coleogyne (Rosaceae), but this is not necessarily the plant on which the insect breeds.

Tospoviruses vectored

None

Crop damage

None

Distribution data

Area of origin

Western USA

Distribution

California