Distinguishing features

Both sexes fully winged. Body and legs brown, tarsi yellow; fore wings pale at base then dark to apex; antennae brown, segments III–IV yellowish. Head wider than long, with irregular and weakly tuberculate sculpture between ocelli, vertex reticulate; ocellar setae pair III outside ocellar triangle in front of posterior ocelli. Antennae 8-segmented; segments short, III–IV with slender forked sense cone; segment VI short, inner margin with long sense cone arising on distal half. Pronotum transversely reticulate, reticles with internal markings, discal setae minute, posterior margin with no long setae. Metanotum with complex, irregularly linear reticulation, median pair of setae far from anterior margin. Fore wing with no prominent setae, wing apex recurved with no stout seta, cilia arise ventrally far behind anterior margin. Tergites with median pair of setae longer than distance between their bases; lateral thirds of tergites with complex transversely reticulate sculpture; posterior margin of VIII with complete comb; tergite X with no longitudinal split.

Related species

D. howei is similar to D. glynn in the form of the distal antennal segments, but has the fore wing dark apart from a basal pale area. The Old World genus Dendrothrips currently includes 56 described species, mainly from Africa and Asia. The metathoric endofurca is greatly enlarged, "lyre-shaped", extending into the mesothorax, the sides of the metathorax are greatly swollen, the hind coxae are wider than long, the fore wing cilia arise ventrally well behind the anterior margin, and the apex of the fore wing is recurved without a prominent terminal seta. The form of the wing apex distinguishes the members of this genus from the other species placed in the Dendrothripinae.

Biological data

Breeding on the leaves of Xylosma maideni [Flacourtiaceae] and Trophis scandens [Moraceae], but adults have also been collected from Smilax australis [Smilacaceae].

Distribution data

Known only from Lord Howe Island, off the east coast of Australia.

Family name

THRIPIDAE - DENDROTHRIPINAE

Species name

Dendrothrips howei Mound

Original name and synonyms

Dendrothrips howei Mound, 1999: 264

References

Mound LA (1999) Saltatorial leaf-feeding Thysanoptera (Thripidae, Dendrothripinae) in Australia and New Caledonia, with newly recorded pests of ferns, figs and mulberries. Australian Journal of Entomology 38: 257–273.

Mound LA & Tree DJ (2016) Genera of the leaf-feeding Dendrothripinae (Thysanoptera, Thripidae), with new species from Australia and Sulawesi, Indonesia. Zootaxa 4109 (5): 569–582.