Female macroptera. Body and legs yellow with light brown markings on pterothorax, and laterally on abdominal segments II–VI; antennal segment I white, II and V–IX dark brown, III–IV light brown; fore wing weakly shaded medially. Head wider than long, slightly produced at anterior over antennal segment I; area behind eyes with transverse reticulation, ocellar triangle with weak reticulation; eyes with 6 weakly pigmented facets; ocellar setae III close together within triangle. Antennae 9-segmented, III–IV sense cone forked; II with some short microtrichia near apex; VI not pedicellate. Pronotum almost without sculpture, with no long setae. Metascutum weakly and irregularly reticulate, median setae arise almost medially, campaniform sensilla present; metascutellum reticulate. Fore wing veinal setae short; first vein with about 6 setae near base, 2 setae distally; second vein with about 8 setae; clavus with 6–7 veinal setae plus one seta at base. Abdominal tergites with weak transverse reticulation medially; VI–VII setae S3 similar in size to S4; VIII with no posteromarginal comb, spiracular area occupying more than half of tergal lateral margin; tergite X short.
Female aptera. Similar to macroptera; antennal segment II without microtrichia; ocelli absent or weakly developed; ocellar setae III sometimes more widely apart; mesonotum and metascutum transverse.
Male aptera. Similar to female; tergite IX with 2 pairs of short stout setae medially; sternites III–VII medially with small oval pore plate.
Larva II. Major setae with broadly expanded, fringed apices; tergite IX without either posteromarginal coloured band or teeth, tergite X with dark posteromarginal band.
Females of A. cucurbiti have a very large spiracular area laterally on tergite VIII. There are 43 species of Anaphothrips known from Australia (Mound & Masumoto, 2009), out of a total of 86 species worldwide (ThripsWiki, 2020). Many of these species have the antennae clearly 9-segmented, others clearly have only 8 segments, but several species have an intermediate condition with segment VI bearing a partial and often oblique transverse suture. The pronotal setae are short, and the fore wing clavus has no discal seta.
Feeding and breeding on the young leaves of Bursaria spinosa [Pittosporaceae].
Recorded from New South Wales, ACT and Victoria.
THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE
Anaphothrips cucurbiti Pitkin
Anaphothrips cucurbiti Pitkin, 1978: 356.
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. http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2009/f/zt02042p076.pdf