Nidularia Targioni Tozzetti, 1868

Spodek, Malkie & Ben-Dov, Yair, 2014, A taxonomic revision of the Kermesidae (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) in Israel, with a description of a new species, Zootaxa 3781 (1), pp. 1-99 : 79

Nidularia Targioni Tozzetti, 1868

Type species: Coccus pulvinatus Planchon (= Nidularia pulvinata (Planchon) . Subsequently designated by Signoret, 1875.

Introduction: Nidularia is a small genus composed of three species: N. balachowskii Bodenheimer , N. japonica Kuwana and the type species, N. pulvinata (Planchon) . The adult female of N. pulvinata was redescribed by Koteja (1980) and that of K. japonica by Liu et al., (1997). All three species are Palaearctic: N. pulvinata is found in Algeria, China, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain while N. japonica is known from China and Japan (Ben- Dov et al., 2013). In addition to being present in Israel, N. balachowskii has been reported from Turkey ( Bodenheimer, 1941) and Iran ( Bodenheimer, 1944). The main diagnostic character for separating adult female Nidularia from those of Kermes

is that Nidularia spp. have microtubular ducts on entire dorsum while Kermes spp. do not. Another difference is the presence of ventral, submarginal rows of both quinquelocular and bilocular pores within the submarginal band of tubular ducts in Nidularia . Most Kermes species lack these pores, although K. echinatus , K. hermonensis and K. vermilio ( Pellizzari et al., 2012) are exceptions because they have a line of bilocular pores, but lack quinquelocular pores, within the submarginal band of tubular ducts on the venter. Nidularia spp. is distinguished from K. echinatus , K. hermonensis and K. vermilio by the lack of conical dorsal setae and the lack of tubular ducts on the dorsum (these traits present in the three above mentioned species).