Ferrisia claviseta (Lobdell)

Kaydan, M. B. & Gullan, P. J., 2012, 3543, Zootaxa 3543, pp. 1-65 : 14

Ferrisia claviseta (Lobdell)

( Fig. 5)

Trionymus claviseta Lobdell, 1930: 218 .

Erium claviseta ; Lindinger, 1935: 122. Change of combination.

Ferrisiana claviseta ; Ferris, 1950: 89. Change of combination.

Ferrisia claviseta ; McKenzie, 1967: 179. Change of combination.

This species is known only from the bark of Celtis mississippiensis (now C. tenuifolia ; Cannabaceae ) and Ulmus (Ulmaceae) from Mayhew (type locality) and Macon in Mississippi, U.S.A. ( Lobdell 1930; Ferris 1950). Lobdell (1930) lists the type data as bark of hackberry, C. mississippiensis , from Mayhew, Mississippi, collected November 12, 1926 by Dr. M.R. Smith. The adult female was described and illustrated by Lobdell (1930) and Ferris (1950) (redrawn here, Fig. 5).

Williams (1996) listed the diagnostic features of this species and suggested that it might be the same as F. quaintancii . The adult female of F. claviseta differs from that of F. quaintancii in having fewer ventral oral-collar tubular ducts on the abdomen and usually more numerous enlarged tubular ducts on the dorsum of the posterior abdomen, although rarely more than five such ducts. However, one adult female of F. claviseta from the type locality has no enlarged tubular ducts anywhere on its body and another two adult females each have only one of these ducts on abdominal segment VII. A more significant difference between the two species is that the minute pores on the rim of the dorsal enlarged tubular ducts of the adult female of F. claviseta are larger (2.5–5.0 µm) than those of F. quaintancii (2.0–3.0 µm) and usually on at least one or two enlarged ducts of F. claviseta these minute pores are paired so that the two circular pores generally lie side by side ( Fig. 5). This seems to be a unique feature of this species. Immature females of F. claviseta also have these double minute pores on the rim of some enlarged ducts but the pores are smaller (about 2 µm across).

We have examined paratypes of this species (in MEM), but the whereabouts of the holotype is unknown ( Schiefer 2000). The paratypes are immature females (second- and third instar nymphs), but the MEM also has three slides with six adult females from the type locality (collected by M.R. Smith on September 2, 1927) and another six slides of 16 adult females and several nymphs (collected by M.R. Smith at Macon on August 23, 1927), and specimens on all nine slides are from the type host, hackberry, C. mississippiensis . The labels on two slides of immature paratype females state that the mealybugs were attended by “acrobatic ants”, which were identified as Crematogaster sp. by Lobdell (1930). The BME also has four slides of nine adult females from the type host and collected by M.R. Smith but at Macon on 23 August 1927, and the USNM has two slides, one with two adult females from the same collection as in the BME and the other with one adult female from Mayhew but collected by Smith on September 2, 1927, and labelled as topotype (i.e., from the type locality). We were unable to obtain fresh material of F. claviseta for our molecular phylogenetic study ( Gullan et al. 2010).