Pericerya, Silvestri, 1939

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 : 71-72

“ Pericerya ” group

Species in this group form a clade in our molecular phylogenetic analysis ( Unruh & Gullan, 2008). “ Pericerya ” is the generic name created by Silvestri (1939) to describe all iceryine species with two pairs of abdominal spiracles. Four species, I. purchasi , I. callitri , I. koebelei and I. sumatrana , as well as several undescribed species from New Caledonia and Australia, belong to the “ Pericerya ” group. All species have only two pairs of abdominal spiracles and have open-centre pores present in marginal clusters. Icerya callitri looks the most dissimilar to the other species with simple multilocular pores, similar to vulvar pores, present on the dorsal surface and ventral margin to submargin. Icerya purchasi and I. koebelei can be separated easily in life because I. koebelei forms a “pencil” of wax that projects upward from the middorsum. Under the microscope they can be distinguished from one another by the number of antennal segments ( I. purchasi has 11 segments, I. koebelei typically has 9 or 10) and by the density of dark hair-like setae on the dorsal surface. Also I. koebelei has a dense middorsal cluster of 30–50 simple multilocular pores from which the wax pencil emanates.

Icerya sumatrana resembles I. purchasi in life, but can be separated by the shape of the multilocular pores, the absence of marginal clusters of setae and the absence of bilocular centre pores on the dorsum.