Anaphothrips, Uzel, 1895

Mound, Laurence A. & Masumoto, Masami, 2009, Australian Thripinae of the Anaphothrips genus-group (Thysanoptera), with three new genera and thirty-three new species, Zootaxa 2042 (1), pp. 1-76 : 5-6

Anaphothrips genus-group in Australia

Seven genera are reported here from Australia that are considered members of the Anaphothrips genus-group. Of these, Aptinothrips is a genus of four grass-living species from Europe, of which two are now widespread around the world in temperate areas ( Palmer, 1975) with one of these common in southern Australia. Apterothrips is a genus of two species originally from the American Pacific coast, but both of which are now also widespread ( Hoddle et al., 2008), with one in southern Australia where at times it has been considered a pest on garlic and lucerne. Caprithrips is a genus of six species, but although one of these is endemic to southern Australia, and two more widespread species also occur on this continent ( Bhatti, 1980), the geographic origin of the genus remains unclear. Three new genera are described here. Two of these are monotypic, and both species are monophagous on particular Australian native plants. The third new genus comprises six species, each of which appears to be associated with native grasses in the tropical areas of northern Australia. Anaphothrips itself, with 79 species now recorded worldwide, involves 43 species recognised here from Australia of which three are assumed to be introduced from other parts of the world, A. obscurus , A. sudanensis , and A. swezeyi . Of the 40 Anaphothrips species endemic to Australia, one described species, A. keatsi , cannot be identified satisfactorily, and 27 are here described as new species.

Members of this genus-group are not uniformly distributed across the Australian continent. Anaphothrips is a major element of the Thripidae fauna in the southern half of Australia, but it seems to be replaced in the north by a range of unrelated taxa, particularly in association with Poaceae . The six species in the new genus Ozanaphothrips have been taken only in northern Australia, whereas most of the endemic Anaphothrips species come from the southern half of the continent. Many of these species are associated with plants in the semi-arid areas, and there seems to be a particularly rich fauna in Western Australia. The diversity of this genus in this and similar areas of Australia is certainly greater than indicated here. The only previous comprehensive study on this group ( Pitkin, 1978) recognised 16 species in Australia of which six were newly described. Most of the earlier species, based on a few badly damaged specimens ( Fig. 1 ), were named by A. A. Girault in brief notes that were subsequently re-published in facsimile (Ghord et al. 1979).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Type slides of some Thysanoptera described by A.A.Girault.