Aeolothrips fuscusAeolothrips fuscusBoth sexes fully winged. Body and legs uniformly brown; female with antennal segment III brownish yellow and brown in apical third, segments II and IV brown; fore wings with posterior margin dark except for base and apex, this dark area not extending to anterior longitudinal vein and with no transverse dark band. Antennae 9-segmented, sensorium on segment III and IV about 0.4 as long as segment, V–IX forming a single unit with V longer than VI–IX. Head with no long setae; pronotal posteromarginal setae not stouter than pronotal discal setae. Fore tarsus apically with stout recurved ventral hamus. Metanotum with equiangular reticulation medially. 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 without paired tubercles on tergites IV–V; tergite IX with claspers bifurcate but without a stout curved seta laterally; antennal segment III fuscous not yellow, in contrast to the female.
A. fuscus is a member of a species-complex in which the fore wing bears a longitudinal dark area along the posterior margin. Most of these species are from North America. A. kuwanaii is particularly similar in the females, although the males lack a stout seta lateral to the claspers. 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.
Swept from various plants, with no information on any specificity, and presumably a facultative predator in flowers, with a mixed diet of pollen and the larvae of other thrips.
Oklahoma, California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.
AEOLOTHRIPIDAE
Aeolothrips fuscus Watson
Aeolothrips fuscus Watson, 1931: 340
Mound LA & Marullo R (1996) The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction. Memoirs on Entomology, International 6: 1–488.
