Thrips unispinus Moulton

Mound, Laurence A. & Masumoto, Masami, 2005, The genus Thrips (Thysanoptera, Thripidae) in Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand, Zootaxa 1020 (1), pp. 1-64 : 55

Thrips unispinus Moulton

Thrips (Epithrips) unispinus Moulton, 1940: 252

Diagnosis: Body and legs yellow; antennal segments I–III yellow, IV–VI light brown with base yellow; forewing pale. Head wider than long, ocellar setae pair III small and arising just within ocellar triangle posterolateral to fore ocellus ( Fig. 101 ); postocular setae pair I about as long as ocellar setae pair III; postocular seta pair II much smaller than III. Antennae 7­segmented, III & IV slightly constricted at apex with short forked sense cone; segment VII short. Pronotum with 1 pair of postero­angular setae ( Fig. 101 ), posterior margin with 3 pairs of setae. Metanotum reticulate medially, median setae arising behind anterior margin, campaniform sensilla present. Forewing first vein with 3 setae on distal half, second vein with about 16 setae; clavus with 5 marginal setae. Tergite II with 4 lateral marginal setae; posterior margin of tergite VIII with comb absent medially but represented laterally by a few irregular microtrichia. Sternite II with 2 pairs of marginal setae, III–VI commonly with 4 to 5 pairs (of which one or more setae may arise sub­marginally), VII with 3 pairs ( Fig. 102 ); sternite II with 1 to 4 discal setae, III–VII with discal setae varying in number from 10 to 24 in more than one irregular transverse row; pleurotergites without discal setae.

Male similar to female in colour and structure but smaller; tergite VIII without posteromarginal comb of microtrichia; IX with median setae S1 arising anterior to a line joining bases of S2 setae; sternites III–VII with small transverse glandular area.

Breeding: A polyphagous flower thrips, this species has been taken from many different plants in northern Australia, but particularly from the flowers of Mangifera indica (see T. aspinus above).

Distribution: Described from Papua New Guinea, and recorded from the Solomon Islands and Brunei ( Palmer, 1992), this species has been taken widely in tropical northern Australia between Cairns (Queensland) and Kununurra (Western Australia), although only as far south as Katherine (Northern Territory).

Relationships: This species shares with T. aspinus and T. subnudula the duplication, or partial duplication, of the setae on the posterior margin of the sternites. However, in contrast to those two species, and also to T. imaginis , it has no pleurotergal discal setae. Only one other member of the genus has been described with a single pair of elongate pronotal postero­angular setae, T. antiaropsis from Papua New Guinea ( Zerega et al., 2004), but that lacks discal setae on the sternites as well as the pleurotergites.

Figures

FIGURES 96–105. Thrips species. T. tomeus 96–99: (96) Head & pronotum; (97) Meso­metanota; (98) Tergites VII–VIII; (99) Fore tarsus. T. trehernei (100) Meso­metanota. T. unispinus 101–102: (101) Head & pronotum; (102) Sternites VI–VII. T. vitticornis 103–104: (103) Meso­metanota; (104) Head & pronotum. T. vulgatissimus (105) Meso­metanota.