Monilothrips kempiMonilothrips kempiBoth sexes fully winged. Body dark brown, legs brown with base and apex of tibiae yellow, also tarsi; antennal segments I–II brownish yellow, III yellow, IV–V yellow at base; fore wing light brown, pale sub-basally. Antennae 8-segmented, III & IV each with forked sense cone, VIII twice as long as VII. Head with conspicuous band of 3 rows of reticles at posterior, ocellar setae III arise inside triangle, three pairs of prominent postocular setae. Pronotum with stout transverse carina parallel to posterior margin, 2 pairs of long posteroangular setae, outer longer than inner, one pair of long anteroangular setae. Mesonotum reticulate, lateral setae short. Metanotum reticulate medially, median setae near posterior margin. Tarsi all 2-segmented. Fore wing with two complete rows of long setae, postero-marginal cilia wavy. Abdominal tergites II–VIII reticulate, median setae small, posterior margins with broad craspedum; tergite X with complete longitudinal split. Sternites with three pairs of long marginal setae.
Male without sternal pore plates.
Only one species is placed in the genus Monilothrips. Within the Panchaetothripinae, this resembles Hercinothrips in having the tarsi 2-segmented and in having two complete rows of setae on the forewing.
Larvae and adults feed on the fronds of various ferns, including Blechnum australe, Adiantum aethiopicum, Woodwardia sp., Polystichum sp., Pellaea andromedifolia.
Recorded from North and South India, South Africa, California (Wilson, 1975), and Hawaii (Mound et al., 2017), but the area of origin is not known; possibly either Africa or India,
THRIPIDAE - PANCHAETOTHRIPINAE
Monilothrips kempi Moulton
Monilothrips kempi Moulton, 1929: 94
Monilothrips montanus Jacot-Guillarmod, 1942: 64
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.
Wilson TH (1975) A monograph of the subfamily Panchaetothripinae (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 23: 1–354.
