Aeolothrips propinquusAeolothrips propinquusBoth sexes fully winged. Female with fore wings bearing two transverse dark bands, apical ring vein dark. Body, legs and antennae brown, but antennal segment II pale at apex, III pale in basal half. Antennae 9-segmented, segment III with linear sensorium extending into basal third of segment, IV with sensorium extending into basal quarter of segment and slightly curved at apex; segments V–IX forming a single unit with V considerably longer than VI–IX. Head and pronotum with no long setae. Fore tarsus apically with stout recurved ventral hamus. Metanotal reticulation weak. Marginal setae on sternites arising at or close to margin; sternite VII paired accessory setae arising very close to margin.
Male fore wings similar to those of female; tergites IV–V each with weak pair of tubercles, IX with paired bifurcate claspers, but without paired sickle-shaped setae.
Over 100 species are placed in the genus Aeolothrips, mostly from the Palaearctic Region but with about 30 from the Nearctic including the western USA. A. propinquus is particularly similar to tenuicornis, from which it is distinguished by the greater length of the sensoria on antennal segments III and IV, and the location of the paired accessory setae close to the posterior margin of sternite VII.
Presumably breeding in flowers, and recorded from several species of Echium [Boraginaceae] in southern Europe. The British type material was described as being “in flowers of Verbascum nigrum” (Bagnall, 1924b), but it should be noted that the given collection details for the type material of A. tenuicornis are almost identical (Bagnall, 1926).
In Britain, known only from two female specimens, one a type specimen from Surrey, the other from Sussex (Bagnall, 1924b; Mound et al., 1976). This species is recorded across Europe from Spain north to France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, and south east to Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as Syria and Morocco (zur Strassen, 2003; Tunç & Hastenpflug-Vesmanis, 2016).
AEOLOTHRIPIDAE
Aeolothrips propinquus Bagnall
Aeolothrips propinquus Bagnall, 1924: 269
Bagnall RS (1924b) New and rare British Thysanoptera. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 60: 269–275.
Bagnall RS (1926) On some new British Thysanoptera. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 62: 279–285.
Mound LA, Morison GD, Pitkin BR & Palmer JM (1976) Thysanoptera. Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects 1 (11): 1–79.
Tunç I & Hastenpflug-Vesmanis A (2016) Records and checklist of Thysanoptera in Turkey. Turkish Journal of Zoology 40: 769–778.
zur Strassen R (2003) Die terebranten Thysanopteren Europas und des Mittelmeer-Gebietes. Die Tierwelt Deutschlands 74: 1–271.
