Trialeurodes ricini (Misra), 1931

Hernández-Suárez, Estrella, Martin, Jon H., Gill, Raymond J., Bedford, Ian D., Malumphy, Christopher P., Betancort, J. Alfredo Reyes & Carnero, Aurelio, 2012, 3212, Zootaxa 3212, pp. 1-76 : 30-31

Trialeurodes ricini (Misra)

( Figures 36, 37, 83, 95)

Aleyrodes ricini Misra, 1924: 131 .

Trialeurodes ricini (Misra) Singh, 1931: 46 .

rara Singh, 1931: 47 [Synonymised by Bink-Moenen, 1983: 185.]

desmodii Corbett, 1935a: 243 [Synonymised by Mound & Halsey, 1978: 217.]

lubia El Khidir & Khalifa, 1962: 47 [Synonymised by Mound, 1965a: 157.]

Distribution in the Canary Islands: GRAN CANARIA: Arucas, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Marzagán. TEN- ERIFE: Punta del Hidalgo, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Taganana. LA GOMERA: Playa Santiago, Valle Gran Rey. Elsewhere: Palaeartic Region: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia; Ethiopian Region: Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda; Oriental Region: Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, Thailand; Austro-oriental Region: Brunei, Philippines.

Host plants in the Canary Islands: Cucurbita sp. , Ricinus communis . Other host plants listed: Cucurbita maxima , Gossypium hirsutum , Hibiscus cannabinus . Eight plant families were listed by Mound & Halsey (1978) and another fourteen by Bink-Moenen (1983).

Comments: Trialeurodes ricini is a polyphagous species but it is most commonly associated with the castor oil plant, Ricinus communis ( Bink-Moenen, 1983) , on which host it may occur in extremely dense colonies ( Fig. 95). Trialeurodes ricini also occurs frequently on Curcurbita in Margazan (Gran Canaria), near heavily infested Ricinus plants (Malumphy, personal observations).

Trialeurodes ricini can be distinguished from T. vaporariorum , also present in the Canary Islands, by the large basal spines on the middle and hind legs ( Fig. 37), which are not present in T. vaporariorum ( Fig. 38). In the field, T. ricini can be distinguished by the presence of long and flat translucent wax-filaments forming a broad fringe around the margin of the puparium ( Fig. 83). Occasionally, most or all of these filaments may be almost vertically directed. Also, nymphs of T. ricini are gregarious and usually yellowish in colour (in contrast to the more sparselydistributed and creamy-coloured puparia of T. vaporariorum ).

The taxonomic separation of this species from T. lauri Signoret was discussed by Martin et al. (2000), who suggested that T. lauri could be a variant form of T. ricini . Recently, both morphological and molecular data has supported their retention as two distinct species that can be separated by the absence ( lauri ) or presence ( ricini ) of a pair of cephalic setae ( Malumphy et al. 2007). In Egypt, T. ricini has been reported as a vector of the begomovirus Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) ( Idriss et al. 1998), but these results were not supported by other studies.