Heliothrips Haliday, 1836

Silva, Larinne De Maria Rocha, O’Donnell, Cheryle A. & Lima, Élison Fabrício Bezerra, 2024, Species identity crisis among New World members of the genus Heliothrips (Thysanoptera: Thripidae: Panchaetothripinae), Zootaxa 5489 (1), pp. 153-172 : 154

Heliothrips Haliday

There are five valid described species in this genus (ThripsWiki 2023), including one new species and one synonymy, apart from a nomen dubium. They show remarkable diversity in the Americas, especially in Brazil. This genus is defined by a dark brown body; head with strong reticulations, antennae with 8 segments, a simple sensory cone on segments III and IV; pronotum transverse, with no long setae and with strong reticulations; metascutum with prominent sculptured triangle; fore wing with a rounded apex; and abdominal tergite X with a longitudinal division. The morphological re-examination of these individuals made it possible to identify the occurrence of intra- and interspecific variations in both populations of H. haemorrhoidalis and H. angustior as defined here. However, the morphological differences do not follow a pattern, thus no new groupings were established, indicating cryptic diversity or species complexes for these two species.