Thrips euphorbiicolaThrips euphorbiicolaBoth sexes fully winged. Body and legs varying from yellow to light brown, ocellar pigment not bright red, antennal segments III–VI yellow with apices light brown; fore wings pale. Antennae 7-segmented; segments III–IV each with short forked sense cone; VII short. Head wider than long; with two pairs of ocellar setae; pair III small on anterior margins of ocellar triangle; postocular setae pairs I & III sub-equal in length to ocellar setae III, pair II smaller. Pronotum with 2 pairs of prominent posteroangular setae; posterior margin with 3 pairs of setae. Mesonotum without anterior campaniform sensilla, median setal pair on posterior third of sclerite. Metanotum irregularly reticulate medially; median setae arising behind anterior margin; campaniform sensilla absent. Fore wing first vein with 5–9 setae on distal half; second vein with about 15 setae. Abdominal tergite II with 3 lateral marginal setae; V–VIII with paired ctenidia, on VIII posteromesad to spiracles; tergite VIII posteromarginal comb complete, microtrichia long and slender; tergite IX with only one pair of campaniform sensilla, X with median split; pleurotergites without discal setae, with closely spaced rows of fine microtrichia. Sternites without discal setae; setae S1 on VII arising in front of margin.
Male small and yellow; tergite VIII with marginal comb represented by few irregular microtrichia; sternites III–V with small transverse pore plate each about twice as wide as median length.
The genus Thrips is the second largest genus in the Thysanoptera, and currently includes, worldwide, over 290 species. All members of genus Thrips lack ocellar setae I on the head, and they all have ctenidia on tergite VIII posteromesad to the spiracles. Other characters, such as number of antennal segments, number of setae on the fore wing veins, and number of discal setae on the sternites are variable between species (Palmer, 1992; Nakahara, 1994; Mound & Masumoto, 2005). Thrips euphorbiicola is particularly similar in structure to Thrips tabaci, but usually has a larger number of setae on the first vein of the fore wing.
Feeding and breeding on the leaves of several species of Euphorbia [Euphorbiaceae]; in Britain, it has been collected from E. amygdaloides.
Described from material collected in Hampshire and Somerset (Bagnall, 1924a: as T. euphorbiae, with nomenclatural revision in Bagnall, 1924b). Collected rarely, and in Britain known only from southern England (Mound et al., 1976). This species has also been recorded from France and Sicily (zur Strassen, 2003).
THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE
Thrips euphorbiicola Bagnall
Thrips euphorbiicola Bagnall, 1924: 273
Thrips euphorbiae Bagnall, 1924: 115
Thrips euphorbiella Bagnall, 1927: 575
Bagnall RS (1924a) New and rare British Thysanoptera. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 60: 113–116.
Bagnall RS (1924b) New and rare British Thysanoptera. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 60: 269–275.
Mound LA & Masumoto M (2005) The genus Thrips (Thysanoptera, Thripidae) in Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. Zootaxa 1020: 1–64.
Mound LA, Morison GD, Pitkin BR & Palmer JM (1976) Thysanoptera. Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects 1 (11): 1–79.
Nakahara S (1994) The genus Thrips Linnaeus (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) of the New World. United States Department of Agriculture. Technical Bulletin 1822: 1–183.
Palmer JM (1992) Thrips (Thysanoptera) from Pakistan to the Pacific: a review. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Entomology Series 61 (1): 1–76.
zur Strassen R (2003) Die terebranten Thysanopteren Europas und des Mittelmeer-Gebietes. Die Tierwelt Deutschlands 74: 1–271.
