Aeolothrips hartleyiAeolothrips hartleyiBoth sexes fully winged. Body and legs uniformly brown; antennal segment III yellow with apical margin slightly shaded, segments II and IV brown; fore wings with posterior margin dark except for base and apex, and with one sub-basal transverse dark band. Antennae 9-segmented, segment III with short linear sensorium, IV with sensorium scarcely 0.5 as long as segment and slightly curved at apex, 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. Metanotal sculpture forming slightly elongate reticulation. 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.
A. hartleyi is a member of a species-complex in which the fore wing bears a longitudinal dark area along the posterior margin, with or without a transverse area as well. Most of the species in this group are from North America. The female of A. hartleyi is similar to that of A. crucifer, but the male lacks tubercles on the abdominal tergites. 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 a range of wild 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.
California, Nevada, Utah and New York.
AEOLOTHRIPIDAE
Aeolothrips hartleyi Moulton
Aeolothrips hartleyi Moulton, 1927: 185
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.
