Montandoniola Poppius

Yamada, Kazutaka, Hirowatari, Toshiya, Susila, Wayan & Okajima, Shûji, 2007, The flower bug genus Montandoniola Poppius (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Anthocoridae) from Indonesia, with descriptions of two new species, Zootaxa 1604, pp. 37-45 : 38

Genus Montandoniola Poppius

Montandoniola Poppius, 1909: 30 . Type species by monotypy: Montandoniola moraguesi Puton, 1896 . Teisocoris Hiura, 1959: 1 (syn. Carayon 1961: 543). Type species by original designation: Ectemnus pictipennis Esaki, 1931 (= Montandoniola moraguesi Puton, 1896 ).

Comments. In addition to generic characters described by Poppius (1909), Postle et al. (2001) indicate that Montandoniola is defined by the following characters: Body> 2.0 mm, cylindrical; head in front of eyes longer than diameter of eye; hind wing with two or three veins, hamus remote from junction of Cu and m–cu. The two Indonesian new species described below also possess these characters, except for their relatively small body size (1.90–2.20 mm in M. ishikawai ; 1.50–1.80 mm in M. bellatula ).

The two new species were collected from the flowers of evergreen trees, Macaranga spp. ( Euphorbiaceae ) by sweeping, together with many tiny thrips (Ishikawa, pers. comm.). Montandoniola moraguesi is a well–known biological control agent of the Cuban laurel thrips, Gynaikothrips ficorum (Marchal) (e.g., Tawfik & Nagui 1965; Lattin 2000). However, this anthocorid has been reported to feed on more than 20 species of gall–forming thrips from a wide variety of host plants ( Muraleedharan & Ananthakrishnan 1978; Dobbs & Boyd 2006). Therefore, it is inferred that the species of Montandoniola are predators on thrips. The two new Indonesian species also possibly prey on thrips in the flowers of Macaranga spp.