Distinguishing features

Female macropterous. Body and legs brown, fore tibiae paler, antennal segment III yellow in basal half or third; fore wing dark at base including clavus, with dark band extending along posterior margin and one small median transverse dark band, ring vein dark around distal pale area. Head with postocular region as long as eye length; distal maxillary palp segment not subdivided. Antennae 9-segmented, III–IV with sensorium shortand straight, 0.3–0.4 as long as segment, without internal markings. Mesonotum with one pair of setae medially. Metanotum with narrow reticulation arcuate around anterior mid-point but sculpture lines more widely spaced on posterior half. Abdominal tergite I with almost no sculpture medially; trichobothria on X smaller than base of major setae on X. Sternites with 4 pairs of marginal setae, median pair much longer than lateral pairs, no discal setae.
Male similar to female but smaller and more slender. Forewing more extensively shaded at apex; abdominal tergite I with two longitudinal ridges; terminal abdominal setae long. Sternites without discal setae.

Related species

Only one species is known in this genus, and this differs from most Australian Aeolothripidae in lacking any discal setae on the abdominal sternites. The transversely linear metanotal sculpture is more similar to that of species in Gelothrips and Lamprothrips than to the reticulate sculpture found in the Erythrothrips species of the New World.

Biological data

Apparently arboreal, this species is known from a few females that were collected from flowers in the canopy of rainforest trees, where it is likely to be predatory on flower-living thrips.

Distribution data

Known only from coastal rainforests of New South Wales.

Family name

AEOLOTHRIPIDAE

Species name

Erythridothrips cubilis Mound & Marullo

Original name and synonyms

Erythridothrips cubilis Mound & Marullo, 1993: 287

References

Mound LA & Marullo R (1993) The Erythrothrips complex of tropical Aeolothripidae (Thysanoptera) with a new Australian genus and a new South African species. Entomologica Scandinavica 24: 285–291.