Neohydatothrips burungaeNeohydatothrips burungaeBoth sexes fully winged. Body yellow with light brown markings, ocellar region brown, also pronotal "blotch", tergites II–VII with brown areas laterally and antecostal ridge dark; fore wing uniformly pale grey. Antennae 8-segmented, III & IV each with short forked sense cone. Head with 3 pairs of ocellar setae, pair III within or on margins of ocellar triangle; median postocular setae about as long as distance between posterior ocelli; mouth cone extending between fore coxae. Pronotum with transverse striae on anterior half, "blotch" with striae closely spaced, posteroangular setae 50 microns. Metanotum with striations transverse at anterior, longitudinal medially. Fore wing first vein setal row complete but penultimate seta displaced to posterior, thus the second vein bears a single seta near the wing apex. Abdominal tergites II–V median setae with distance between their bases scarcely twice diameter of setal pore; VII–VIII with posteromarginal comb of microtrichia complete and long. Sternites with many rows of microtrichia medially.
Mound & Marullo (1996) considered this species a variant and synonym of Neohydatothrips signifer (Priesner). However, N. signifer is possibly a different species known only from the original specimens collected in Mexico (Lima & Mound, 2016). These Mexican type specimens of N. signifer have the hind tibiae more distinctly brown medially than in samples of N. burungae from Mexico, and the comb of microtrichia on the posterior margin of tergite VII is shorter than that on tergite VIII rather than subequal in length. In California, N. burungae is also similar to N. setosus, but has the posteromarginal cilia on the sternites more than 0.5 as long as the marginal setae. A further similar species is N. gracilipes that is associated with Malvaceae, and has the fore wing second vein bearing no setae distally. The genus Neohydatothrips is found in many parts of the world and almost 120 species are listed. Identification keys are available to 13 species recorded from Central America (Mound & Marullo, 1996), and 41 species from the Neotropics (Lima & Mound, 2016). Stannard (1968) treats 11 species from Illinois, but many of the 35 species described from the USA north of Mexico (Nakahara, 1988) remain poorly defined.
Breeding on the leaves of its host plant, particularly Persea americana [Lauraceae]; also taken from Tagetes minuta [Asteraceae] in Brazil, and Citrus [Rutaceae] in California. Reported as distorting the young leaves of cultivated Passiflora [Passifloraceae] in Colombia.
Recorded from California, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil.
THRIPIDAE - SERICOTHRIPINAE
Neohydatothrips burungae (Hood)
Sericothrips burungae Hood, 1935: 150
Sericothrips mimosae Hood, 1955: 134
Lima EFB & Mound LA (2016a) Systematic relationships of the Thripidae subfamily Sericothripinae (Insecta: Thysanoptera). Zoologischer Anzeiger 263: 24–32.
Lima EFB & Mound LA (2016b) Species-richness in Neotropical Sericothripinae (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). Zootaxa 4162: 1–45.
Mound LA & Marullo R (1996) The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction. Memoirs on Entomology, International 6: 1–488.
Nakahara S (1988) Generic assignments of North American species currently assigned to the genus Sericothrips Haliday (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 90: 480–483.
Stannard LJ (1968) The Thrips, or Thysanoptera, of Illinois. Bulletin of the Illinois Natural History Survey 29: 213–552.
