Print Fact SheetHiplothrips

Generic diagnosis

These notes are based on Dyadechko, 1962 & 1964 with help from Victoriya Rozhina: Medium sized, macropterous Phlaeothripinae with extensively yellow body and legs. Head longer than wide; postocular setae blunt, extending to posterior margin of eyes; mouth cone short . Antennae slender, 8-segmented; segment III with 2 sense-cones, IV with 4; segment VIII not narrowed at base.  Only epimeral and posteroangular major setae developed, capitate. Fore tarsus in both sexes with long and slender, beak-shaped tooth; fore femora greatly widened. Fore wings distinctly constricted medially, with with 2 longitudinal thickenings on surface and with some transverse short thickening in narrow part of wing; with 3 to 4 duplicated cilia. Tergites II‒VII without sigmoid wing-retaining setae, but with several stout setae; tergite IX setae longer than tube, acute; tube 0.75 as long as head.

The following character states are not available in the original descriptions: maxillary stylets, maxillary bridge; pronotum notopleural sutures; prosternal basantra; mesopresternum; metathoracic sternopleural sutures; pelta; male tergite IX setae S2 and sternite VIII pore plate.

Relationships

The only species in this genus was described originally in Haplothrips. Two years later, the genus was distinguished by Dyadechko (see USDA translation, 1977: 246) because the surface of the fore wings have "well-developed, longitudinal, transverse, chitinised thickenings" in contrast to Haplothrips species. In the absence of specimens it is not possible to interpret these descriptive comments, particularly because they may be artifacts due to the slide-mounting method. Moreover, the illustrations of the fore wing given in 1962 and in 1977 are rather different. There remains a possibility that zhigajevi Dyadechko is a species of Haplothrips, in which genus it may be related to Poaceae-living species such as the widespread species tritici Kurdjumov, but the reference to a "beaked-shaped" for tarsal tooth is confusing.

Biology

This species was collected from cereal crops and grasses as well as Phragmites in association with infestations of a species of Pseudococcus.

Distribution

This species remains known only from the original description. That was based on specimens taken at two sites on the northern coastline of the Black Sea.

Nomenclature

Hiplothrips Dyadechko, 1964: 222. Type species Haplothrips zhigajevi Dyadechko 1962, by monotypy.

Only one species is listed in this genus (ThripsWiki, 2023). There is confusion over the spelling of the species name (zhigaevi in the original species heading, but zhigajevi elsewhere in that 1962 publication). Contrary to a statement in Dyadechko (1964), the publication date of the generic name was 1964 not 1962.  

Euro-Mediterranean species
Hiplothrips zhigajevi (Dyadechko, 1962)

References

Dyadechko NP (1962) A new species of the genus Haplothrips (Thysanoptera) from the Crimea and Transcaucasus. Entomologicheskoe Obozrenie, 41: 160–162.

Dyadechko NP (1964) Thrips (Thysanoptera) of the European part of the U.S.S.R., 387 pp. Kiev [in Russian]. Complete English translation published 1977, for USDA, ARS, by Amerind Publishing Co., Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi. 344 pp.