Androthrips Karny, 1911

Cavalleri, Adriano, Lindner, Mariana F. & Mendonça Jr, Milton de S., 2016, New Neotropical Haplothripini (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae) with a key to Central and South American genera, Journal of Natural History 50, pp. 1389-1410 : 1396

Androthrips Karny

Type species: Mesothrips melastomae Zimmermann.

This genus comprises 12 Asian species (ThripsWiki 2015). These have three sense cones on antennal segment III and four on IV, and have a very characteristic swollen fore femur, with the inner margin bearing a basal tubercle and a row of minute tubercles. These are predatory thrips on gall-living insects, including other thrips species ( Mound and Minaei 2007). The Asian Androthrips ramachandrai Karny , is the only species recorded from the New World and is now widespread in the Americas. Larvae and adults of this thrips feed on the immature stages of the gall-inducer Gynaikothrips uzeli (Zimmermann) inside the leaf-galls on Ficus benjamina ( Cavalleri et al. 2011; Melo et al. 2013).