Aeolothrips collarisAeolothrips collarisBoth sexes with complete, banded wings. Body and legs brown, pronotum usually yellow but sometimes brownish-yellow; antennal segment II yellow in about apical half, segment III extensively yellow. Antennae 9-segmented, segment III with linear sensorium short, IV with sensorium more than half length of segment and curved distally; segments V–IX forming a single unit with V slightly longer than VI–IX. Head and pronotum with no long setae. Fore tarsus apically with stout recurved ventral hamus. Marginal setae on sternites arising at or close to margin; sternite VII with two pairs of accessory setae arising well in front of margin.
Male tergites IV and V with paired dorsal tubercles; setae at base of claspers on tergite IX shorter than clasper, with stout curved seta lateral to clasper.
A. collaris is a member of the Eurasian species-complex that includes A. fasciatus and A. intermedius. Females with the pronotum brown are very similar to brown females of A. auricestus but have the median pair of setae on sternite VII further apart, however the males are readily distinguished because of the stout pair of curved setae ventrolateral to the claspers in A. collaris (see zur Strassen 2003: 49). About 105 species are placed currently in the genus Aeolothrips. Most of these are from the Palaearctic Region (including the Mediterranean, Iran and northern India, but with five species extending through eastern Africa to South Africa), with about 30 species from the Nearctic (mainly western USA). Only one species of this genus is known from the Neotropics, A. fasciatipennis described from Chile, but Mound & Marullo (1996) indicate this is probably the same as A. fasciatus.
Flower-living on a range of plants, with no recorded specificity. Probably a facultative predator with a mixed diet of pollen and the larvae of other thrips. Collected in California from Alfalfa flowers in association with western flower thrips on which adults and larvae were predatory.
Widespread from southern Europe, around the Mediterranean to Madeira and the Canary Islands and east to India and Bangladesh; introduced to California.
AEOLOTHRIPIDAE
Aeolothrips collaris Priesner
Aeolothrips fasciatus var. collaris Priesner, 1919: 119
Aeolothrips fulvicollis Bagnall, 1919: 253
Aeolothrips perclarus Melis, 1932: 156
Aeolothrips brevicinctus Bagnall, 1934: 125
Aeolothrips palaestinensis Priesner, 1935: 318
Aeolothrips collaris subsp. meridionalis Priesner, 1948: 324
Alavi J & Minaei K. (2018) Studies on the genus Aeolothrips (Thysanoptera: Aeolothripidae) in Iran, with a key to species. Zootaxa 4446 (3): 343–360.
Bailey SF (1951) The genus Aeolothrips Haliday in North America. Hilgardia 21: 43–80.
Mound LA & Marullo R (1996) The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction. Memoirs on Entomology, International 6: 1–488.
zur Strassen R (2003) Die terebranten Thysanopteren Europas und des Mittelmeer-Gebietes. Die Tierwelt Deutschlands 74: 1–271.
