Ovaticoccus parvispinus (Chaffin) Miller & Stocks, 2022

Miller, Douglass R. & Stocks, Ian C., 2022, New genera and species of felt scales (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Eriococcidae), with descriptions of new species and immature instars of described species, Zootaxa 5221 (1), pp. 1-213 : 148

Ovaticoccus parvispinus (Chaffin) comb. n.

Eriococcus parvispinus Chaffin 1923: 169 .

Onceropyga parvispina (Chaffin) ; Ferris 1955: 213–214 (change of combination).

Oregmopyga parvispina (Chaffin) ; Hoy 1963: 180 (change of combination).

Type material: The lectotype of this species was designated by Miller and Miller (1993) and is deposited in the USNM ; there is one additional paralectotype in the USNM . In addition, there are two paralectotype slides; one contains two adult females and the other contains a single adult female (in FSCA) .

The justification for treating Oregmopyga as a junior synonym of Ovaticoccus , leading to this new species combination, is provided in the “Notes” section that follows the generic description above. The adult female of this species was described by Chaffin (1923), Ferris (1955), Miller and McKenzie (1967), and Miller and Miller (1993) and information from those papers is not repeated here.

Etymology: The species epithet “ parvispinus ” is formed from the Latin word “ parvus” meaning “little” or “small” and the Latin word “ spina ” meaning “spine” and probably refers to the small enlarged setae (spines) that occur on this species.

Notes: There is some question about the identity of the adult male mentioned by Chaffin (1923). The presence of two pairs of lateral caudal filaments is characteristic of males of mealybugs in the Phenacoccini and is not known to occur in eriococcid males. However, the body of the male is described as “bright carmine”, which would be more typical of an eriococcid.

Several collections of specimens either the same as, or similar to, this species are available for study. In addition to the collections from Florida and Texas which are typical of the material described in Chaffin (1923), we have seen also series of specimens from the Bahamas on orchid, Grand Turk on Epidendrum , Mexico on Beaucarnea and an unknown shrub, Oklahoma on grass, and Peru on Capparis avicennifolia . The latter four collections are here included in Ov. peruvianus based on the reduced number of enlarged setae, but variation in other characters, and the diversity of hosts and wide geographic range are surprising for a single species. Morphological diversity includes differences in the abundance of enlarged setae, the distribution of cruciform pores and multilocular pores, and the arrangement of microtubular ducts. Unfortunately, we were unable to find sufficient morphological uniformity to convince us that there are more than two easily recognizable species within this possible complex of species. One species in the complex, other than Ov. parvispinus , was described by Granara de Willink and Díaz (2007) as Oregmopyga peruviana and was distinguished by the lack of, or highly reduced number of, enlarged setae. It is treated here as a distinct species, i.e., Ov. peruvianus (see below).