Sciothrips cardamomiSciothrips cardamomiFemale macropterous. Body colour brown, legs and antennal segments III–VIII yellow; fore wings light brown with base pale. Antennae 8-segmented, III & IV slender each with a long forked sense cone. Head longer than wide and projecting in front of eyes, without sculpture between eyes; 2 pairs of ocellar setae present, pair III as long as distance between compound eyes and arising on anterior margins of ocellar triangle; postocular setae small and not in a single row. Pronotum transverse, inner pair of posteroangular setae longer than outer pair; posterior margin with only 1 pair of setae. Metanotal sculpture weak, campaniform sensilla absent, median setae short and arising behind anterior margin. Mesofurca with spinula. Fore wing first vein with 2 setae on distal half, second vein with about 5 widely spaced setae; clavus with 3 marginal setae, apical seta shorter than sub-apical seta. Tergites with transverse lines of sculpture medially, posterior margin of I–VII laterally with small microtrichia; tergite VIII with comb of long regular microtrichia. Sternites without discal setae, setae S1 on sternite VII arising in front of margin.
The only species in Sciothrips is similar to the species of Limothrips and Bregmatothrips in the general appearance of its slender body, and with the head prolonged in front of the eyes. However, the tergites lack posteromarginal craspeda, and the genus is related to Taeniothrips, judging from the absence of ocellar setae pair I, and the long and regular posteromarginal comb on tergite VIII.
Breeding on young tissues of flowers and leaves, and sometimes common in rolled apical leaves, on certain Zingiberaceae, including Hedychium gardnerianum and Elettaria cardamomum (cultivated cardamom) .
Asian in origin, this thrips is widespread in India and Bangladesh, also China (Hainan) and is introduced to Costa Rica (Mound & Marullo, 1996). It is also common in Hawaii, and although not known from California, it is a potential immigrant (Mound et al., 2017).
THRIPIDAE - THRIPINAE
Sciothrips cardamomi (Ramakrishna)
Taeniothrips cardamomi Ramakrishna, 1935: 357
Mound LA & Marullo R (1996) The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction. Memoirs on Entomology, International 6: 1–488.
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.
