Ferrisia quaintancii (Tinsley)

Kaydan, M. B. & Gullan, P. J., 2012, 3543, Zootaxa 3543, pp. 1-65 : 41-42

Ferrisia quaintancii (Tinsley)

( Fig. 17)

Dactylopius quaintancii Tinsley, 1898: 220 .

Pseudococcus quaintancii (Tinsley) ; Fernald, 1903: 108. Change of combination.

Erium quaintancei (Tinsley) ; Lindinger, 1935: 122. Change of combination and misspelling of species name.

Eurycoccus quaintancei (Tinsley) ; Ferris, 1950: 86. Change of combination and misspelling of species name.

Eurycoccus copallinae Ferris, 1953: 349 . Syn. n.

Ferrisiana quaintancei (Tinsley) ; Ferris, 1953: 362. Change of combination and misspelling of species name.

Ferrisia quaintancei (Tinsley) ; McKenzie, 1967: 179. Change of combination and misspelling of species name.

Type material examined. Lectotype of Dactylopius quaintancii Tinsley (designated by Williams (1996)): third-instar ♀ on slide with 2 other third-intar ♀, labelled: “153 TYPE / Dactylopius / Quaintancii / Type. Tinsl. / Lake City, Fla / Feb. 9. 1898 / on Rhus sp. copalina / coll. Quaintance ” ( USNM) . Paralectotypes: 2 third-instar ♀ on same slide as lectotype and 5 third-instar ♀ on second slide with same data ( USNM) ; 9 third-instar ♀ on 3 slides that are subsequent preparations from the dry type material, labelled: “ Pseudococcus / quaintancii (Tins.) / Type / On Rhus sp. / [copallina] / Lake City , Florida / A.L. Quaintance colr. / Feb. 9, 1898 ” ( USNM) . There is also a box of dry material with “TYPE” printed on it and a label inside: “ Dactylopius Quaintancii, Tins. / Type. On Rhus sp. / Lake City Fla. 2/9/98 / Coll. A.L. Quaintance. ” ( USNM) , but there appear to be no insects remaining in the box.

Lectotype (here designated) of Eurycoccus copallinae Ferris : adult ♀ on slide with a second adult ♀, labelled: “ Trionymus / quaintancei (Tins) / From crown of / Rhus / copalina / Gainesville, Fla. / July, 1918 / C. J. Drake, coll. / GFF [= G.F. Ferris]”, UCDC type # 1789 ( BME) . Paralectotypes: 1 adult ♀ on same slide as lectotype ( BME) ; 4 adult ♀, 2 on each of 2 slides labelled: “ Trionymus / quaintancei / ( Tins ) / On roots of Rhus / copalina [sic] / Gainesville, Fla. / July 7, 1918 / C. J. Drake, coll. / GFF” (one slide in each of BME and FSCA) ; 2 adult ♀, on slide labelled: “ Trionymus / quaintancei / ( Tins. ) / On sumac . / Ft. Meyers Fla. / From J. Chaffin / 1919 / GFF” ( BME) ; 6 adult ♀ slide-mounted by M.B. Kaydan 2006 from dry material in box with one label: “ Pseudococcus quaintancei Tins. / On crowns of Rhus copalina / Gainesville, Fla. / July, 1918 C.J. Drake, coll. / G.F. Ferris det.” ( BME) .

Other material examined. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Florida : 2 adult ♀ (2 slides), ex Rhus sp. , Apopka , 16.v.1973, W. H. Pierce ( USNM) ; 1 adult ♀, 4 second-instar ♀ (5 slides), ex roots of Rhus copallina, Alachua, Kanapaha Pines , near Arredondo , between Gainesville & Archer, 22.xi.2002, S. Halbert & D. R. Miller ( BME) ; 2 adult ♀ (1 slide), ex Sumac , Gainesville, Sept. 1918, from J. Chaffin 1919 ( BME) ; 2 third-instar ♀ (2 slides), ex Rhus sp. , Gainesville , 17.xii.1972, W. H. Pierce, DPI #125834 ( USNM) ; 3 adult ♀ (3 slides), ex Rhus sp. , Old Town , 5.x.1977, W. H. Pierce, DPI-126243 (1 slide FSCA, 2 slides USNM) ; 2 adult ♀ (2 slides), ex Rhus sp. , Sorrento , 5.xii.1972, W. H. Pierce, DPI #125835 ( USNM) .

The only records of F. quaintancii are from Rhus copallina (Anacardiaceae) in Florida, U.S.A. It is likely that the species always occurs on the roots or crown of its host plant, although the position on the host was not recorded for more than half of the collections and not specified in the original descriptions by Tinsley (1898) and Ferris (1950). Tinsley’s (1898) description is of the third-instar female, misidentified as an adult. The colour in life was recorded as greyish-brown but the body was described as so covered in white wax secretion that the true colour showed only on the venter. Tinsley’s type material in the USNM consists of two original slides with a total of eight third-instar females and three subsequent slides with a total of nine third-instar females and the same type data. A lectotype was designated by Williams (1996), who stated that one specimen lacked dorsal enlarged tubular ducts and the others possessed ducts laterally on the posterior abdomen, often totalling only one or two ducts. The lectotype has three dorsal enlarged tubular ducts, each with only one seta, and one duct also has a minute pore on the sclerotised rim.

Ferris (1950) described and illustrated the adult female of F. quaintancii (redrawn here, Fig. 17) but in a different genus and misspelt the species name as Eurycoccus quaintancei . He used specimens collected from Rhus in Gainesville and Fort Meyers, Florida. After examining Tinsley’s types of D. quaintancii, Ferris (1953) believed that he had misidentified the species and so proposed the name Eurycoccus copallinae for the insects that he had described in 1950. The BME has 12 adult females (see type data above) that bear the data given in Ferris (1950) plus an additional slide with two adult females collected from sumac at Gainesville, Florida, in September 1918. The FSCA has one slide (of two adult females) that must have been obtained from Ferris because it has exactly the same label as one of the BME slides, including the printed words “Entomological Collection Stanford University” which appear on almost all Ferris slides. Twelve of these 16 adult females totally lack enlarged tubular ducts on the dorsum, and the other four females either have one, two or four of these ducts. We believe that Ferris (1950) was correct in identifying the specimens from Rhus in Florida as F. quaintancii . All adult females collected from this host in Florida (see specimens listed under “Other material examined” above) have very few dorsal enlarged tubular ducts, similar to the third-instar females of the type series of D. quaintancii .

A further complication is the possibility that F. gilli and F. quaintancii are the same species, even though the adult females differ substantially in the number of enlarged tubular ducts on the dorsum, and females of F. quaintancii seem always to lack clusters small ventral tubular ducts marginally on the body (in F. gilli these ducts are in segmental clusters at least on the posterior segments). On adult females of F. quaintancii (types of E. copallinae ) there are 0–4 enlarged tubular ducts on the dorsum (if present, always on the posterior abdomen) compared with 90–120 ducts distributed on all body segments on the type adult females of F. gilli . The thirdinstar females of the type series of D. quaintaincii have 1–4 enlarged tubular ducts on the dorsum (n = 15 females) except one female has 10 ducts, and the ducts are confined to the abdomen, mostly on segments V–VII and often marginally on abdominal segment I, but rare on segments II–IV, whereas third-instar females from the type series of F. gilli from pistachio and grass in California have 62–74 enlarged tubular ducts on the dorsum with ducts on all body segments (n = 6 females). Gullan et al. (2010) sequenced the DNA from one second-instar nymph (voucher FBK016), collected from the roots of R. copallinae in Florida. This specimen has a total of 20 enlarged tubular ducts on the dorsum, compared with 30–38 ducts on 12 second-instar nymphs from the type series of F. gilli from pistachio and almond in California. Prior to DNA sequencing, it was assumed that the nymph from Florida was F. quaintancii based on its host plant, location and association with one slide-mounted adult female resembling F. quaintancii (i.e., having a total of just three dorsal enlarged tubular ducts). However, the DNA of the nymph showed that it belonged to clade F along with specimens of F. gilli ( Fig. 3). Either F. gilli is the same species as F. quaintancii or there was a mixed collection of two Ferrisia species in the sample from which nymph FBK016 was taken, or there was an error during processing for sequencing. Given this uncertainty and the huge morphological disparity between adult females of F. gilli and F. quaintancii , we have taken the conservative approach of retaining both names until further data can be accrued. We note though that F. quaintancii appears confined to the roots and crowns of Rhus , a member of the Anacardiaceae , and that pistachio, also a member of the Anacardiaceae , is a favoured host of F. gilli in California. It is not known whether F. gilli can live and develop on the roots of pistacio trees, but overwintering nymphs have been recorded sheltering below the soil around the base of trees, sometimes several inches below ground ( Gullan et al. 2003).

The adult female of F. quaintancii is most similar to those of F. claviseta , F. gilli and F. setosa in lacking the anterior pair of ostioles. However, the adult female of F. setosa ( Fig. 18) is distinctive in having an anal ring mostly with more than 12 anal ring setae (6 setae in the other three species) and fewer than 6 multilocular pores near the vulva (many more pores in the other species). The adult female of F. quaintancii can be distinguished from that of F. gilli by the features listed in the paragraph above and also by having many more ventral oralcollar tubular ducts in a transverse row across most abdominal segments. It differs from the adult female of F. claviseta by the lack of paired minute pores associated with the rim of the enlarged tubular ducts of F. claviseta and by having many more ventral oral-collar ducts on the abdomen (refer to the key to species and compare Figs 5 and 17).