Podothrips barrowi, Mound & Minaei, 2007

Mound, Laurence A. & Minaei, Kambiz, 2007, Australian thrips of the Haplothrips lineage (Insecta: Thysanoptera), Journal of Natural History 41 (45 - 48), pp. 2919-2978 : 2970

Podothrips barrowi sp. nov.

Female aptera. Bicoloured, body and legs yellow except abdominal segments VIII–X and antennal segments V–VIII (Figure 72). Head with no ocelli, compound eyes reduced to less than 20 facets; postocular setae long and capitate; vertex without sculpture; antennal segment III short with pronounced sub-basal ring but no sensoria (Figure 28), IV with two sensoria. Fore tibial inner margin with sub-apical papilla small and bearing a seta; fore tarsal tooth not large. Meso and metanota without sculpture, wing axillary sclerites not developed; mesopresternum eroded into several pieces; metathoracic sternopleural sutures well developed. Pelta broad, without sculpture; tergites with wing-retaining setae no larger than median discal setae; tergite VIII with S1 and S2 capitate, IX with S1 and S2 acute.

Measurements of holotype female (in M m). Body length 1900. Head, length 172; median width 132; postocular setae 42. Pronotum, length 155; width 175; major setae am 3, aa 30, ml 3, epim 44, pa 42. Tergite IX setae S1 68, S2 102, S3 80. Tube length 100; basal width 60; anal setae 152. Antennal segments III–VIII length 32, 40, 34, 36, 36, 26.

Material examined

Holotype ♀ aptera: Western Australia, Barrow Island, collected with vacuum sampler, April / May 2005 (Jonathan Majer) . Paratypes: 5♀ apterae collected with holotype .

Comments

Ananthakrishnan (1967) proposed a sub-genus Saucrothrips for a single species from India with antennal segment III very similar to barrowi . However, these two are not likely to be closely related, because the Indian species, S. scitulus , has the typical tooth-like tubercle at the inner apex of the fore tibiae that is found in many Podothrips species from around the world. In contrast, all members of the P. australis group discussed here lack this tubercle, and P. barrowi is probably an Australian endemic derived from within this group. It is the only species discussed here that has the metathoracic sternopleural sutures developed, apart from P. australis and P. lucasseni . Unlike so many of the species in this genus, the apical antennal segments are brown not yellow.

Podothrips lucasseni (Krüger)

Phloeothrips lucasseni Krüger 1890, p 105 .

This is a widespread Asian species that is sometimes associated with sugar cane or even rice. It is recorded by Ritchie (1974) from Hawaii to Bangladesh, with both hawaiiensis Moulton and oryzae Priesner placed as synonyms. It differs from all of the Australian species in this genus in the character states indicated in the key ( Figure 64 ), and also in the uniform brown body and femora contrasting with the yellow tibiae. Two small females have been studied from Darwin.

Figures

Figures 59–65. (59) Haplothrips victoriensis, head and pronotum. (60) H. victoriensis, pelta. (61) Podothrips ardis, head and pronotum. (62) P. australis, head and pronotum. (63) P. australis, prosternites. (64) P. lucasseni, fore tibia. (65) P. barrowi, head and pronotum.