Eremiothrips Priesner, 1950

Rasool, Iftekhar, Abdel-Dayem, Mahmoud S., Alattal, Yehya Zaki & Aldhafer, Hathal M., 2021, The Anaphothrips genus-group of Thripidae (Thysanoptera) from Saudi Arabia with two new species of Eremiothrips, Journal of Natural History 55 (25 - 26), pp. 1599-1617 : 1605

Eremiothrips Priesner

The eremophilous genus Eremiothrips currently includes 21 species (ThripsWiki 2021). Most of these are known from southern Mediterranean countries ( Bhatti et al. 2003; zur Strassen 2003), with 13 known only from Iran ( Minaei 2012, 2014; Minaei and Aleosfoor 2020), and a few known from India and China ( Minaei 2012). The desert climate of Saudi Arabia seems favourable for this genus. The members of Eremiothrips can be recognised by the following features: antennae 9-segmented ( E. bhatti and E. efflatouni 8-segmented); sense cones on antennal segments III and IV forked (simple in E. imitator ); head wider than long; pronotum with 1 pair of posteroangular setae ( E. efflatouni and E. eshghii without setae); tergites and sternites of abdomen without craspeda. Males with or without pore plates on sternites, tergite IX with special paired processes present or absent ( Bhatti et al. 2003; Minaei 2014). Species of Eremiothrips are seemingly phytophagous on flowers and leaves and do not exhibit a specific host association.