Distinguishing features

Both sexes fully winged. Body, legs and antennae brown to dark brown; antennal segments III–V bicoloured, yellow with apices brown; fore wings pale; major setae pale but setae on tergite IX and anal setae all brown. Antennae 8-segmented, segment III with 2 slender sense cones, IV with 4 similar sense cones; VIII with narrow pedicel. Head elongate, slightly elevated in midline, cheeks weakly convex, with one pair of short stout setae behind eyes; one pair of long setae on anterior margins of ocellar triangle, 3 pairs of shorter setae on vertex (postocellar,postocular and midvertex); maxillary stylets close together medially in head, retracted to compound eyes. Pronotum with no epimeral sutures; epimeral setae as long as antennal segment III with apices bluntly pointed, remaining major setae shorter; prosternal basantra present, mesopresternum transverse. Fore tarsus with no tooth. Fore wing broad, parallel sided, with about 30 duplicated cilia. First abdominal segment, pelta, with slender lateral wings; tube long with prominent setae along lateral margins.
Male with no fore tarsal tooth; abdominal tergite VI laterally with pair of drepanae extending beyond segment VII; tube similar to female. 

Related species

M. bonannii is closely related to M. delmasi, the other European species in this genus (Mound & Palmer, 1983). A large thrips species for Britain, M. bonannii is slightly smaller than Bacillothrips nobilis. The genus Megalothrips comprises eight species; 3 from North America, 3 from eastern Asia, and 2 from Europe. It is closely related to Megathrips and Bacillothrips, but has much longer maxillary stylets than species in either of those genera. Together with the tropical species-rich genus Bactrothrips it seems likely that these represent a single clade, within which recognition of smaller genera has limited phylogenetic significance. 

Biological data

Feeding on the spores of unidentified fungi on Salix [Salicaceae] and Pinus [Pinaceae] in Europe, and breeding on dead branches.   

Distribution data

Mostly recorded across central Europe, but also known from Spain and Italy (Marullo & zur Strassen, 1994), this species was taken in Britain on five occasions between 1935 and 1947, all at Wood Walton Fen in Cambridgeshire (Mound et al., 1976).

Family name

PHLAEOTHRIPIDAE - IDOLOTHRIPINAE

Species name

Megalothrips bonanni Uzel

Original name and synonyms

Megalothrips bonanni Uzel, 1895: 227

References

Marullo R & zur Strassen R (1994) Thysanoptera. In: Checklist delle specie della fauna italiana 40: 1–7. Eds: Minelli A., Ruffo S. & La Posta S. - Calderini, Bologna, Italy.

Mound LA, Morison GD, Pitkin BR & Palmer JM (1976) Thysanoptera. Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects 1 (11): 1–79.

Mound LA & Palmer JM (1983) The generic and tribal classification of spore-feeding Thysanoptera (Phlaeothripidae: Idolothripinae). Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). Entomology 46: 1–174.