Antenna

Tergite VIII

Distinguishing features

Both sexes fully winged. Female sharply bicoloured, body dark brown with abdominal segments III–VI sharply yellow, also all tibiae, tarsi and antennal segment III yellow, IV–V largely yellow; fore wing banded, sub-apical area pale, contrasting with dark apex and median area. Antennae 8-segmented, III & IV each with apex narrowed and bearing a long forked sense cone. Head wider than long, with 2 pairs of ocellar setae, pair III near ocellar triangle margins. Pronotum with transverse lines of sculpture, with one pair of long setae. Metanotum weakly reticulate, median setae arising at anterior margin. Fore wing first vein with 2 setae distally, second vein with at least 15 setae. Tergites III–VII without lines of sculpture medially; VIII with regular comb of long microtrichia; X without longitudinal split. Sternite VII with 2 pairs of median setae arising well in front of posterior margin.
Male tergite IX with lateral pair of setae stout; sternites III–VII each with a pair of pore plates.

Related species

Dichromothrips includes 18 species, all from orchids in the Old World tropics. An identification key to 14 of these is given by Mound (1976a), and Okajima (1999) provides information on four species from Borneo. The genus is possibly related to Taeniothrips. D. orchidis differs from the occasional glasshouse species corbetti in having a pair of long posteroangular setae on the pronotum.

Biological data

Specific to species of Orchidaceae, and presumably feeding and breeding on leaves and flowers. The only British record is from a species of Cymbidium.

Distribution data

Not a British species, but recorded once in Britain, a single adult female under glass in 1938 (Mound et al., 1976), and otherwise known only from Myanmar.

Family name

THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE

Species name

Dichromothrips orchidis Priesner

Original name and synonyms

Dichromothrips orchidis Priesner, 1932: 111

References

Mound LA (1976a) Thysanoptera of the genus Dichromothrips on Old World Orchidaceae. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 8: 245–265.

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

Okajima S (1999) On four Dichromothrips species (Thysanoptera, Thripidae) collected from one population of Arundina sp. (Orchidaceae) in Sabah, Borneo. Japanese Journal of Systematic Entomology 5: 145–152.