Heptathrips cumberi Mound & Walker

Mound, Laurence A., 2007, New Australian spore-feeding Thysanoptera (Phlaeothripidae: Idolothripinae), Zootaxa 1604, pp. 53-68 : 58

Heptathrips cumberi Mound & Walker

Heptathrips cumberi Mound & Walker, 1986: 25 .

Described originally as widespread throughout New Zealand, yet one paratype was an apterous female from Tasmania, and the species is here recorded widely around the southern coasts of Australia. The shape of the head and the long maxillary stylets close together medially are similar to members of the Holarctic genus Cryptothrips Uzel , but antennal segments III and IV both bear only two sensoria, and segments VII and VIII are broadly fused despite having a distinct suture. The thoracic sternites are heavily eroded, with the mesopraesternum not visible in apterae, but evidently fused to the mesoeusternum together with the spinasternum in macropterae. The abdominal tube is conical and strongly sculptured, and often almost yellow, in contrast to the other species of Heptathrips . The compound eyes of macropterae usually have four pigmented ommatidia in a longitudinal row ventrally, together with two further such ommatidia posterolaterally. However, in apterae the number of pigmented ommatidia is variably reduced.

Material studied. South Australia, Kangaroo Island, Cape Linois, 4 female macropterae, 4 female apterae, 4 male apterae, from dead twigs of dwarf Eucalyptus , 28.xii.2002; American River, 2 male apterae from dead Eucalyptus , 1.x.2006. Tasmania, Lake Pedder, 1 female macroptera, iii.2003. Western Australia: 40km north of Albany, 1 female macroptera from Eucalyptus , v.2001; Geraldton, 1 female macroptera in Malaise trap, 1.xi.2003.