Liothrips

Mound, Laurence, Goldarazena, Arturo, Lopez-Guillen, Guillermo & Hance, Thierry, 2016, Replacement names for two homonyms of Liothrips brevitubus Karny: one from California, the other for a species damaging Jatropha crops in Mexico, Zootaxa 4208 (6), pp. 594-599 : 596

Liothrips species in Mexico

Although 13 species of Liothrips are listed from Mexico, there is no key available by which these can be identified. Thus in order to identify the thrips from Jatropha it was necessary to compare the original descriptions of each of these 13 species. As indicated in Table 1, ten of these species were described as having at least antennal segment III clear yellow or even bright yellow, whereas the species on Jatropha has this segment largely brown. Of the three species with segment III not yellow, bibbyi and mexicanus, were described as having this segment shaded brown on the outer edge, and a third species, brevitubus , was described as having segment III “yellow in first and third quarters but brown in second and fourth quarters”. The thrips from Jatropha was noted as having a small tooth on the fore tarsus, an unusual condition among species of the genus Liothrips . This condition is shared by only three of the species known from Mexico, parcus, mexicanus and brevitubus . However, the apex of the femora as well as the base and apex of the tibiae were described as bright yellow for parcus, and this distinguishes that species. Similarly, mexicanus is distinguished because it was described as having the fore wings with a dark median band extending along two-thirds of the wing. In contrast, details in the description of brevitubus are closely similar to the species from Jatropha , and moreover the original description states that the specimens were found “deforming the leaves of an unknown plant”. To confirm the identification, type material of brevitubus was obtained on loan, although a further complication arises from the name being preoccupied within the genus. A new name is therefore proposed here, and a new description and illustrations of the species are provided to facilitate recognition of this pest.