Print Fact SheetDichromothrips smithi

Distinguishing features

Female macropterous. Body dark brown, tarsi and distal areas of tibiae variably yellow; fore wing brown with base pale; antennae brown, constricted apex of segment III pale. Antennae 8-segmented, III & IV each with apex narrowed and bearing a long forked sense cone. Head slightly wider than long; with 2 pairs of ocellar setae, pair III anterolateral to ocellar triangle and shorter than distance between posterior ocelli. Pronotum with transverse lines of sculpture, one pair of long posteroangular setae. Metanotum reticulate, median setae arising at anterior margin and closer to lateral setae than to each other; campaniform sensilla present. Fore wing first vein with 2 setae distally and 1 medially, second vein with about 15 setae. Meso and metafurca with long spinula. Tergites III–VIII without sculpture mesad of discal seta S2, laterally with transverse reticulation; VIII with regular comb of long microtrichia; X without longitudinal split. Sternites without discal setae, VII with setal pairs S1 and S2 arising well in front of posterior margin.
Male macropterous; bicoloured, pronotum and lateral areas of tergites yellow, also antennal segments II–III; tergite IX without stout setae; sternites III–VII each with pair of large oval pore plates.

Related species

Dichromothrips includes 18 species from orchids in the Old World tropics. An identification key to 14 of these is given by Mound (1976), and Okajima (1999) provides information on four species from Borneo, including D. smithi. The genus is possibly related to Taeniothrips, in which the species breed mainly on leaves.

Biological data

Breeding on leaves and in flowers of various cultivated Orchidaceae, including cultivated Vanilla on which it is reported to cause leaf damage in India.

Distribution data

Widespread in the Oriental region from India through Malaysia, Indonesia and southern China to Japan (Okajima, 1999); intercepted in quarantine at California from Hawaii where it is common on Arundina graminifolia (Mound et al., 2017).

Family name

THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE

Species name

Dichromothrips smithi (Zimmermann)

Original name and synonyms

Physopus smithi Zimmermann, 1900: 10

References

Mound LA (1976) Thysanoptera of the genus Dichromothrips on Old World Orchidaceae. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 8: 245–265.

Mound LA, Matsunaga J, Bushe B, Hoddle MS & Wells A (2017) Adventive Thysanoptera Species on the Hawaiian Islands: New Records and Putative Host Associations. Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society 49: 17–28.

Okajima S (1999) On four Dichromothrips species (Thysanoptera, Thripidae) collected from one population of Arundina sp. (Orchidaceae) in Sabah, Borneo. Japanese Journal of Systematic Entomology 5: 145–152.