Icerya natalensis (Douglas)

Unruh, Corinne M. & Gullan, Penny J., 2008, Identification guide to species in the scale insect tribe Iceryini (Coccoidea: Monophlebidae), Zootaxa 1803 (1), pp. 1-106 : 88-89

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.11646/zootaxa.1803.1.1

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/304C87CD-FF91-FF86-FF2B-B1BEFBB9C14E

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Icerya natalensis (Douglas)
status

 

Icerya natalensis (Douglas) View in CoL

Ortonia natalensis Douglas, 1888: 86 View in CoL .

Icerya natalensis (Douglas) View in CoL ; Cockerell (1896a: 323).

Crypticerya natalensis (Douglas) View in CoL ; Morrison (1928: 203).

Icerya natalensis (Douglas) View in CoL ; Unruh & Gullan (2008: 41) View Cited Treatment .

Unmounted material. Adult female oval, 7–8 mm long, 4–5 mm wide, broadest across abdomen; body chrome-yellow, covered in short, flocculent white wax, margin with close fringe of delicate hairs (adapted from Douglas, 1888).

Slide-mounted material. Adult female elliptical, 6.8 mm long, 2.8 mm wide. Antennae 11 segmented. Eyes, mouthparts and legs as for tribe; claws very long and slender. Hair-like setae completely covering derm, longest at posterior margin and associated with clusters of open-centre pores. Open-centre pores, each 18–19 µm in diameter, 15–18 µm long, with 8–10 outer loculi, forming marginal clusters. Simple multilocular pores, each 7–8 µm in diameter, with bilocular (appearing reniform) or trilocular centre and 3–5 outer loculi scattered on ventromedial head and thorax. Simple multilocular pores, each 10–11 µm in diameter, with bilocular centre and 8–12 outer loculi, covering dorsal surface and ventral submargin and margin. Ovisac band absent. Marsupium absent. Simple multilocular pores, appearing slightly bluish when stained, each pore 14–15 µm in diameter, with bilocular or trilocular centre and 8–12 outer loculi, scattered across ventromedial abdomen. Vulva as for tribe. Cicatrices round, numbering 3, central cicatrix largest. Abdominal spiracles in 3 pairs. Anal tube and anal opening as for genus.

First-instar nymph as for genus, except with 2 pairs of long, hair-like setae at abdominal apex.

Type data. SOUTH AFRICA: Natal, Richmond, ex Cliffortia serrulata, 1888 (J.R. Ward) .

Type material. Syntypes: ad ♀♀, 1 st -instar nymphs ( BMNH?) .

Material examined. ad ♀, “ I. natalensis / Richmond , Africa / Aug. 20 ‘95/(Cooper)”//“6661”//“132/19” ( USNM) ; exuviae of 3 rd -instar nymph, “ Icerya / natalensis (Dougl.) /Natal/ A.W. Cooper, Coll./ Aug. 30, 1895 ” ( USNM) ; 5 1 st -instar nymphs, “ Icerya / Na !alensis/ Larva /awl/Richmond, Natal.95”//“6661”//“140/23” ( USNM) ; 1 1 st -instar nymph, “4501/ Larva of/ ORTONIA NATALENSIS /hatched in England from/egg laid by adult insect/sent from Natal./1889. R. T. Lewis. ”//“Fresh Specimen,/killed on slide by mounting medium./ 132/18” ( USNM) .

Additional material (not examined). 2 1 st -instar nymphs, “ Larvae of Ortonia Natalensis (Richmond, Natal) , hatched in England December 1888, R T Lewis" ( BMNH); ad ♀, “mounted from material in the Douglas collection, 1904/120” and “ 7.x.1915 ” ( BMNH) .

Taxonomic notes. Refer to I. natalensis group for discussion of similar species.

We placed this species in Icerya rather than Gigantococcus based on the types of pores present on the adult female, especially the open-centre pores around the body margin.

Douglas (1888) explained that several specimens of this species were first collected in May, 1888 by J.R. Ward, who sent them to G. Henderson (then editor of “British Bee Keepers”), who sent them to R.T. Lewis, who then sent Douglas five live specimens. Douglas received them on June 23, 1888 and promptly killed all five of them. Lewis kept some alive and reported that several adult females, “have each made a mass of flocculent matter behind them…in the midst of which numerous ova are deposited” ( Douglas, 1888: 88).

A year later, Douglas (1889) published Lewis’s illustrations and comparisons of the first-instar nymph of Ortonia natalensis and I. purchasi . Lewis’ notes and drawings were based on first-instar nymphs that hatched from material of O. natalensis sent to him in May, 1889. He explained that the adult females were not covered in flocculent white wax, but rather produced white cottony wax composed of long threads and a “train” of wax that extended from the posterior end of the body and into which eggs were laid. Lewis sent Douglas two adult females with their “woolly trains” intact and full of first-instar nymphs ( Douglas, 1889). Based on Lewis’s account of the differences between the first-instar nymphs of the two species and Douglas’ own comparison of O. natalensis to Signoret’s description of I. sacchari (now I. seychellarum ), Douglas reaffirmed his belief in the placement of the species in Ortonia (1889: 233) .

As pointed out to Brain (1915: 105) by A.W. Cooper, Fernald (1903) listed Acacia , orange and lemon incorrectly as hosts of I. natalensis . Those plants are listed as hosts of I. purchasi in Douglas’s (1889) paper directly above his section about O. natalensis .

The five specimens that Lewis sent to Douglas in 1888 have not been located in the collection at BMNH (J.H. Martin, BMNH, pers. comm.). Both BMNH and USNM have specimens dated 1889, but we presume this material is from the second batch of specimens sent to Douglas by Lewis .

USNM

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Arthropoda

Class

Insecta

Order

Hemiptera

Family

Margarodidae

Genus

Icerya

Loc

Icerya natalensis (Douglas)

Unruh, Corinne M. & Gullan, Penny J. 2008
2008
Loc

Icerya natalensis (Douglas)

Unruh, C. M. & Gullan, P. J. 2008: 41
2008
Loc

Crypticerya natalensis (Douglas)

Morrison, H. 1928: 203
1928
Loc

Icerya natalensis (Douglas)

Cockerell, T. D. A. 1896: 323
1896
Loc

Ortonia natalensis

Douglas, J. W. 1888: 86
1888
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