Hoplothrips laticornis (Bagnall)

Mound, Laurence A., 2017, Intra-specific structural variation among Hawaiian Hoplothrips (Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripidae), with ten new synonymies and one new species, ZooKeys 722, pp. 137-152 : 143

Hoplothrips laticornis (Bagnall)

Trichothrips laticornis Bagnall, 1910: 692.

Hoplothrips mauiensis Moulton, 1928: 119. Syn. n.

Remarks.

Bagnall described this species from a single, slide-mounted, macropterous female collected at Kona, Hawaii, in 1892. This specimen is mounted ventral side uppermost, with the wings folded on the body. Moulton described mauiensis from 21 specimens taken at Olinda, Maui in 1926 and 1927. This species appears to be diagnosed by the following character states: antennal segment VIII slender and narrowed to base, segment III no more than 1.6 times as long as wide, segment IV not sharply paler in basal third and no more than 1.5 times as long as wide; pronotal anteroangular setae no more than 30 microns long; metanotal median area without sculpture, one pair of rather short median setae; pelta lateral lobes weakly curving away from anterior margin of tergite II; tergite IX with three pairs of setae about 0.8 as long as tube. The only available male of mauiensis appears to lack a pore plate on sternite VIII, but this is possibly an artefact due to poor slide preparation. The relatively short and broad, almost uniformly coloured, fourth antennal segment (Fig. 20) does not seem to have been reported in any other member of this genus from any part of the world, although an almost similar condition exists in a few specimens identified as flavitibia .