Icerya natalensis (Douglas, 1888)

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 : 70

Icerya natalensis group

Three species make up this group: I. clauseni , I. natalensis and I. travancorensis . The former two species are the only Icerya species that do not form an ovisac band and have open-centre pores. The open-centre pores of each species resemble each other except that the open-centre pores of I. clauseni have a small cleft, which is lacking from the open-centre pores of I. natalensis . The third species, I. travancorensis lacks open-centre pores and forms an ovisac band. All species have only simple multilocular pores with bilocular centres on the dorsal surface, but I. natalensis differs by the shape of the pores on the ventromedial abdomen [ I. natalensis has larger pores that appear bluish when stained] with a trilocular centre and 8–12 elongate outer loculi, while I. clauseni and I. travancorensis have smaller pores with a bilocular or trilocular centre and 4–6 outer loculi]. Icerya natalensis is very rare and was collected originally in Natal, South Africa, over 100 years ago. We placed it in Icerya rather than Gigantococcus , because of the presence of open-centre pores and absence of compound multilocular pores.