Hemiberlesia ruebsaameni ( Cockerell, 1902 )

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 : 101

Hemiberlesia ruebsaameni ( Cockerell, 1902)

This species, recorded only from Papua New Guinea (Bismarck Archipelago), forms small cylindrical galls, each about 2 mm long, in clusters on the leaves of Codiaeum sp. ( Euphorbiaceae ). It was originally described by Cockerell (1902) in the genus Cryptophyllaspis . Williams and Watson (1988: 17) studied a few original slidemounted specimens, described as “ in poor condition ”, and concluded that “ The species seems to be a component of Abgrallaspis or a genus close to it ”, but they took no formal action to transfer it to a different genus. Despite this, the species was moved to Abgrallaspis by Ben-Dov and German (2003).

Recently, Normark et al. (2014) made the genus Abgrallaspis a junior synonym of Hemiberlesia . As a consequence of this action, in the same paper Normark et al. transferred twelve Abgrallaspis species to the genus Hemiberlesia with the following explanation: “ thought to be congeneric with it ”. Abgrallaspis ruebsaameni was included among them, and is presently treated as H. ruebsaameni in García Morales et al. (2016) .