Rhaphidothrips longistylosusRhaphidothrips longistylosusBoth sexes fully winged. Body, legs and antennae brown, except tarsi and antennal segment III yellow, and antennal segment IV brownish-yellow; fore wings shaded with base sharply pale. Antennae 8-segmented, VII–VIII elongate, longer than V+VI, III and IV each with slender forked sense cone. Head with 2 pairs of ocellar setae, pair III arising between posterior ocelli and longer than side of ocellar triangle; maxillary palps 3-segmented. Pronotum transversely reticulate, with 2 pairs of long posteroangular setae, 3 pairs of posteromarginal setae. Mesonotum with anterior pair of campaniform sensilla, median setae arising far anterior to posterior margin. Metanotum reticulate, median setae just behind anterior margin; campaniform sensilla present. Fore wing first vein with 3 setae on distal half, second vein with about 8 setae. Abdominal tergites with transverse reticulation, median pair of setae long but far apart, campaniform sensilla on posterior third of tergite; VIII with a complete marginal comb; IX with 2 pairs of campaniform sensilla, X without a dorsal split. Sternites without discal setae, setae S1 in VII arising in front of margin.
Male similar to female; sternites III–VII with large pore plate; tergite IX without stout setae medially.
Relationships of the genus Rhaphidothrips are unclear, but the only included species is possibly an aberrant species related to Taeniothrips.
Found on leaves of its host plants, and presumably breeding on grasses.
Recorded once in Britain, in 1953, on grass at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire (Pitkin, 1969), but widespread from Norway southwards across Central Europe, and has been introduced into the eastern USA (Stannard, 1968; zur Strassen, 2003).
THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE
Rhaphidothrips longistylosus Uzel
Rhaphidothrips longistylosa Uzel, 1895: 131
Rhaphidothrips fuscipennis Hinds, 1902: 159
Rhaphidothrips longistylosus f. hemimacroptera Priesner, 1920: 54
Pitkin BR (1969) New records of Thysanoptera in the British Isles. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 105: 201–202.
Stannard LJ (1968) The thrips, or Thysanoptera, of Illinois. Bulletin of the Illinois Natural History Survey 29: 213–552.
zur Strassen R (2003) Die terebranten Thysanopteren Europas und des Mittelmeer-Gebietes. Die Tierwelt Deutschlands 74: 1–271.
