Frankliniella invasorFrankliniella invasorFemale macropterous; body colour yellow with pale setae, abdominal tergites with faint brown spots laterally joined by grey band behind antecostal ridge; antennal segments VI–VIII brown, also apical half of IV and II; fore wing pale. Antennae 8-segmented, III with pedicel forming a sharp-edged ring, III & IV with forked sense cone, VIII as long as VII. Head wider than long; 3 pairs of ocellar setae present, pair III slightly longer than side of ocellar triangle and arising on anterior margin of triangle; postocular setae pair I present, pair IV as long as distance between hind ocelli. Pronotum with 5 pairs of major setae; anteromarginal setae as long as anteroangulars with four minor setae on anterior margin; one pair of minor setae present medially between posteromarginal submedian setae. Metanotum with 2 pairs of setae at anterior margin, campaniform sensilla present. Fore wing with 2 complete rows of veinal setae. Tergites V–VIII with pair of lateral ctenidia, on VIII anterolateral of spiracle; posteromarginal comb on VIII complete, with short slender microtrichia arising from triangular bases. Sternites III–VII without discal setae.
This species has a distinctly sharp-edged ring on the pedicel of antennal segment III, in which character state it ressembles the North American species F. tritici. However, the abdominal tergites have a brown area connecting a pair of lateral grey-brown spots, and apart from this the species is similar to F. kelliae, a common flower-living species in the northern Caribbean (Mound & Marullo, 1996). There are almost 240 species listed in the genus Frankliniella, but most of these are known only from the Neotropics, and no member of the genus is native to Africa or Australia.
Breeding in flowers, and recorded from the flowers of a very wide range of unrelated plant species.
Although described originally from Hawaii, this species is presumably originally from Central America. It is recorded from Hawaii, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Trinidad and Puerto Rico, and is potentially invasive to California.
THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE
Frankliniella invasor Sakimura
Frankliniella invasor Sakimura, 1972: 263
Mound LA & Marullo R (1996) The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction. Memoirs on Entomology, International 6: 1–488.
Mound LA, Nakahara S & Tsuda DM (2016) Thysanoptera-Terebrantia of the Hawaiian Islands: an identification manual. ZooKeys 549: 71–126.
Nakahara S (1997) Annotated list of the Frankliniella species of the world (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). Contributions on Entomology, International 2 (4): 355–389.
