Diagnostic characters

Despite being considered a single lineage (Lima & Mound, 2016), the members of this subfamily do not all share any one structural character. However, the pronotum of most species has a distinctive delimited area of sculpture (the blotch), the fore wing second vein has no setae, and tergite IX bears two or three pairs of median setae (instead of the normal Thripidae condition of 0 or 1 pair).

Diversity

This subfamily comprises three genera and 168 species (ThripsWiki, 2020), with all three genera and 16 species recorded from Australia (ABRS, 2020).

Distribution data

Members of this subfamily are found worldwide. However, Sericothrips species are essentially Holarctic, whereas the species of the other two genera are widespread in the tropics and subtropics.

Biological data

Most species of Sericothripinae seem to feed on leaves, although some are known to inhabit flowers.

References

Australian Biological Resources Study. https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/Sericothripinae/statistics

Lima EFB & Mound LA (2016) Systematic relationships of the Thripidae subfamily Sericothripinae (Insecta: Thysanoptera) Zoologischer Anzeiger 263: 24–32.

ThripsWiki (2020) ThripsWiki - providing information on the World's thrips. Available from: http://thrips.info/wiki/Main_Page [accessed 29.x.2019].