Distinguishing features

Both exes fully winged. Female uniformly brown or with head, thorax, and legs more or less yellow. Antennae with apex of segment II and base of segment III pale; fore wing weakly shaded, pale at base; major setae dark. Head with 2 pairs of ocellar setae; pair I absent; pair III between or behind posterior ocelli. Mouth cone long, extending between fore coxae. Antenna 8-segmented; segments III and IV each with a forked sense cone. Pronotum almost unsculptured, inner pair of posteroangular setae longer than outer pair. Metanotum reticulate, median setae near anterior margin. Fore tarsi with a minute terminal claw. Fore wing 1st vein with 2 distal and 1 (or 0) median setae. Tergites without any ctenidia; tergite II with 3 lateral marginal setae; III–VI median setae small and further apart than their length; VIII postero-marginal comb long, fine. Sternites and pleurotergites without discal setae.
Male with a small, circular pore plate on sternites III and IV.

Related species

This species differs from other Adelphithrips species in its long mouth cone, the three lateral marginal setae on tergite II, and the minute pretarsal claw on the fore tarsi. This genus comprises three described species, each of which has a different arrangement of sternal pore plates in males; these are present on three sternites in A. cassiniae, four in A. dolus, and two in A. nothofagi.

Biological data

A. nothofagi appears to feed on the young foliage of Nothofagus (Lophozonia) menziesii and Nothofagus (Fuscospora) solandri. Pupation probably occurs in the soil, because larvae and adults have been collected from beneath Nothofagus trees.

Distribution data

Known only from New Zealand, where it is widespread throughout the range of Nothofagus, from Lake Taupo in the North Island to Invercargill in the South Island (GB, TO, HB / NN, SD, BR, WD, MC, FD, SL). Collected in all months except May and June.

Family name

THRIPIDAE, THRIPINAE

Species name

Adelphithrips nothofagi Mound & Palmer

Original name and synonyms

Adelphithrips nothofagi Mound & Palmer, 1981: 161

References

Mound LA & Palmer JM (1981) Phylogenetic relationships between some genera of Thripidae (Thysanoptera). Entomologica Scandinavica 15: 153–170.