Cryptophyllaspis Cockerell, 1897

Pellizzari, Giuseppina & Porcelli, Francesco, 2017, Aspidiotus bornmuelleri Lindinger, 1911, rev. comb. (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Diaspididae), a neglected endemic species from Macaronesia, with comments on the genus Cryptophyllaspis, and further notes on the scale insect fauna of Canary Islands, Spain, Zootaxa 4300 (1), pp. 99-110 : 100

The genus Cryptophyllaspis Cockerell, 1897 and its species

In 1897, Cockerell erected Cryptophyllaspis as a subgenus of Aspidiotus , with A. occultus Green, 1896 as the type species. Cockerell (1897) gave the following explanation for the erection of the new subgenus: “ A form discovered by Green in Ceylon, living in leaf-gall of Grewia ”. In 1899, Cockerell himself changed the status of Cryptophyllaspis from subgeneric to generic rank without any explanation. Fernald (1903) accepted the generic status of Cryptophyllaspis and considered it to be close to Aspidiotus .

Subsequently, a few other gall-forming diaspidids were included in the genus Cryptophyllaspis , namely C. ruebsaameni Cockerell, 1902 ; C. liquidambaris Kotinsky, 1903 ; C. elongata ( Green, 1905) , and C. bornmuelleri , the last two having been described previously in the genus Aspidiotus . Of these, C. liquidambaris is a North American species, C. occulta , C. elongata and C. ruebsaameni are Oriental (from Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea respectively), while C. bornmuelleri is a Macaronesian species.

The inclusion of these species in Cryptophyllaspis was controversial. Lindinger (1911) did not recognise the genus Cryptophyllaspis [as suggested by Rübsaamen (1902)] for the new species bornmuelleri and described it in the genus Aspidiotus . Ferris (1938, 1941) observed that the ability to be a gall-maker could hardly be taken as a basis for distinguishing a genus and that the validity of genus Cryptophyllaspis could be determined only by a study of the species then included in it. As a consequence, C. liquidambaris was transferred to the genus Diaspidiotus ( Ferris 1938a) and C. occulta and C. elongata were placed in Aspidiotus ( Ferris 1941) . Borchsenius (1966) simply accepted the genus Cryptophyllaspis and included four species: C. occulta , C. elongata , C. ruebsaameni and C. bornmuelleri . This situation did not change until the work of Williams and Watson (1988) and Normark et al. (2014). The history and present systematic position of the four Cryptophyllaspis species are discussed below.