Distinguishing features

Female fully winged, with body brown, but tarsi, apices of tibiae, and antennal segments III–V yellow; fore wing pale or very weakly shaded. Antennae 8-segmented; segment I with a single dorso-apical seta; III & IV each with simple sense cone. Head longer than wide, projecting in front of eyes, with 3 pairs of ocelli, pair III anterolateral to ocellar triangle. Pronotum with 2 pairs of prominent posteroangular setae. Metanotum with characteristic transverse reticulation, median setae close to anterior margin. Fore wing first vein with 2 setae on distal half, second vein with 8 to 9 setae. Tergites I–VIII with median pair of campaniform sensilla close to posterior margin, II–VIII with no sculpture medially, with marginal craspedum of small lobes; tergite IX large, almost 1.5 times as long as VIII. Sternites without discal setae; marginal setae pair S1 arising on the posterior margin.
Male with wing lobe shorter than thorax width; body brown with pterothorax and abdominal segment I yellow; abdominal tergites with several lines of sculpture medially; sternites without pore plates.

Related species

The genus Bregmatothrips includes 11 species, and Mound (2011) provides an identification key to most of these. Their geographical distribution is interesting, with 10 species from the Old World, and B. venustus widespread but apparently native to the Americas. Stannard (1968) treated what is now considered to be B. venustus as two or three different species. Bhatti (1984) discussed variation between several species.

Biological data

Breeding on the leaves of various Poaceae, but with no recorded specificity, and possibly associated with leaf damage on Zea mays.

Distribution data

Widespread in USA (California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Tennessee, Wyoming, Illinois, Georgia, Hawaii), also Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Galapagos Islands [also several countries in Africa, see Mound, 2011: 40].

Family name

THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE

Species name

Bregmatothrips venustus Hood

Original name and synonyms

Bregmatothrips venustus Hood, 1912: 67
Limocercyothrips bicolor Watson, 1926: 10
Bregmatothrips gracilis Hood & Williams, 1915: 122
Bregmatothrips sonorensis Stannard, 1956: 71
Bregmatothrips difficilis Johansen, 1977: 45

References

Bhatti JS (1984) A remarkable Bregmatothrips-like new genus from Africa, with a review of Bregmatothrips Hood and Plutonothrips Priesner. Annals of Entomology 2: 83–97.

Mound LA (2011) Grass-dependent Thysanoptera of the family Thripidae from Australia. Zootaxa 3064: 1–40.

Stannard LJ (1968) The Thrips, or Thysanoptera, of Illinois. Bulletin of the Illinois Natural History Survey 29: 213–552.

Thysanoptera Californica