Distinguishing features

Female fully winged. Body brown to dark brown, abdomen yellow laterally, head yellowish around ocellar triangle, pronotum partly yellow, tibiae and tarsi yellow; antennal segments brown; fore wings uniformly shaded; prominent body setae brown. Head as long as wide, produced in front of eyes, reticulate behind eyes but very weakly near ocelli; eyes with 6 weakly pigmented facets; ocellar setae III within ocellar triangle. Antennae 9-segmented, III with sense cone simple, IV with sense cone forked; II–III without microtrichia, VI sharply pedicellate. Pronotum weakly reticulate medially; with no long setae. Metascutum reticulate, median setae well behind anterior margin; campaniform sensilla present. Fore wing veinal setae minute; second vein with no setae basal to vein fork; clavus with 4–5 veinal setae. Abdominal tergites reticulate medially, small microtrichia on sculpture lines laterally; II–VII with small tuberculate microtrichia on posterior margin laterally and sometimes medially, setae S3 and S4 shorter than S1 and S2; VIII with postero-marginal comb complete, microtrichia with wide bases; spiracles greatly enlarged, occupying at least half of tergal lateral margin. Sternite VII setae S1 close to posterior margin.
Male unknown.

Related species

Out of a total of 81 species of Anaphothrips worldwide, 43 are known from Australia (Mound & Masumoto, 2009) and five from New Zealand. Many of these species have the antennae clearly 9-segmented as in A. varii, others clearly have only 8 segments, and several have an intermediate condition with segment VI bearing a partial and often oblique transverse suture as in A. obscurus. The macropterae of A. varii have been collected together with the apterae of A. moundi, and it remains unclear if these are two distinct species.

Biological data

Feeding on the leaves of unidentified grasses (Poaceae).

Distribution data

Known only from New Zealand and Australia. It is widespread across southern Australia, but in New Zealand it is recorded only from the North Island (ND, WI).

Family name

THRIPIDAE, THRIPINAE

Species name

Anaphothrips varii Moulton

Original name and synonyms

Anaphothrips varii Moulton, 1935: 98.

References

Mound LA & Masumoto M (2009) Australian Thripinae of the Anaphothrips genus-group (Thysanoptera), with three new genera and thirty-three new species. Zootaxa 2042: 1–76.