Generic diagnosis

Female macropterous or micropterous. Head wider than long, not projecting in front of eyes; maxillary palps 3-segmented; eyes with no pigmented facets; ocellar setae I present, ocellar setae III arise between posterior ocelli; five pairs of prominent postocular setae in transverse row. Antennae 8-segmented, III and IV with forked sense cones, III-VI with microtrichia on both surfaces; segment I without paired dorso-apical setae. Mouth cone apex narrow slightly, maxillary palps 3-segmented. Pronotum wider than long, with few transverse sculpture lines; two pairs of long posteroangular setae, two pairs of posteromarginal setae; one pair of anteromarginal setae distinctly longer than discal setae. Mesonotum anterior campaniform sensilla close together. Metanotum reticulate, without campaniform sensilla, median setae at anterior margin. Macropterous fore wing first vein "with short gap", second vein with complete row of setae; clavus with 5 veinal setae. Mesosternum with spinula, metasternum without. Legs without claws, tarsi 2-segmented. Tergites I–VII extensively reticulate (in microptera) but reticulation weaker on posterior segments; II–VII without craspedum or ctenidia, median campaniform sensilla near middle; laterotergites without discal setae; tergite VIII with posteromarginal comb, without ctenidia or microtrichia anterior to spiracles. Sternites without discal setae; sternites III–VII with three pairs of posteromarginal setae, II with two pairs; sternite VII setae S2 arise in front of margin.
Male with pore plates on sternites III–IV.

Biological data

No precise host association is known for any of the three described species.

Distribution data

One of the three species was described from Shaanxi (China), the other two are known from southwestern China with one also found in Nepal and India.

Nomenclatural data

Vulgatothrips Han, 1997: 543. Type species Vulgatothrips shennongjiaensis Han, 1997, by monotypy.

Three species are now placed in this genus (Wang et al., 2020), all of them recorded from China (ThripsWiki, 2020):

dissimilis Hu & Feng, 2014: 263.
shennongjiaensis Han, 1997: 544 (568).
smilax Bhatti, 1976: 317.

Relationship data

Thripidae sub-family Thripinae: this is a diverse group involving more than 230 genera, and relationships of Vulgatothrips remain obscure. It is known only from one macropterous female and two micropterae (one from Sichuan was studied and is illustrated here). The genus shares several characters with the Frankliniella genus group, including Parabaliothrips, but lacks ctenidia. It shares character states with Ctenothrips but the included species all lack ocellar setae pair I (Wang et al., 2020).

References

Han YF (1997) Thysanoptera: Aeolothripidae, Thripidae, Phlaeothripidae. pp531–571 in Yang Xing-Ke [eds] Insects of the Three Gorge Reservoir Area of Yangtze River. Chongqing Press, Chongqing.

ThripsWiki (2020). ThripsWiki - providing information on the World's thrips. <http://thrips.info/wiki/Main_Page>

Wang ZH, Li YJ, Tong XL & Mound LA (2020) Phylogenetic analysis of the Taeniothrips genus-group, with revision of the species of Ctenothrips and Vulgatothrips (Thysanoptera, Thripinae). Zootaxa 4750 (3): 301-327.