Allothrips aureusAllothrips aureusBoth sexes wingless. Body of female yellowish brown but male yellow; legs yellow, tube yellow but apex with transverse grey band; antennal segments IV–VII brown. Antennae 7-segmented (segments VII and VIII fused without suture); segments III and IV each with 2 sense cones. Head longer than wide with convex cheeks; eyes reduced to a row of 4 ommatidia; three pairs of long slender capitate setae – interocular, postocular and midvertex; maxillary stylets band-like, sub-parallel medially and about one-third of head width apart; maxillary palps with terminal sensorium long and stout. Pronotum with 5 pairs of capitate major setae; epimeral sutures complete; prosternal basantra present, mesopresternum eroded. Fore tarsus without tooth. Metanotum without sculpture, median setae long and capitate. Pelta extending almost full width of tergite II anterior margin; tergite IX setae S1 and S2 long and capitate; tube shorter than head.
The genus Allothrips currently includes 24 species, although Mound (1972) treated most of these as sub-species within two nominal species – the European A. pillichellus Priesner (with the basal half of the tube yellow) and the North American A. megacephalus Hood (with the tube brown to reddish brown). On this basis it was suggested that A. aureus from California is unrelated to the other Allothrips found in North America, but is derived from specimens inadvertently imported from India on aircraft. Variation among specimens from California in the chaetotaxy of the mesonotum suggests that A. aureus cannot be distinguished from A. montanus Ananthakrishnan from northern India.
Breeding in leaf-litter and feeding by imbibing fungal spores.
Known only from California, but possibly introduced from Eurasia.
PHLAEOTHRIPIDAE, IDOLOTHRIPINAE
Allothrips aureus Stannard
Allothrips aureus Stannard, 1955: 155
Allothrips pillichellus aureus Stannard; Mound, 1972: 34.
Mound LA (1972) Polytypic species of spore-feeding Thysanoptera in the genus Allothrips Hood (Phlaeothripidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 11: 23–36.
