Aleuroplatus, Quaintance & Baker

Martin, Jon H., 2005, Whiteflies of Belize (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) Part 2 - a review of the subfamily Aleyrodinae Westwood, Zootaxa 1098 (1), pp. 1-116 : 18

ALEUROPLATUS Quaintance & Baker

Aleuroplatus Quaintance & Baker, 1914: 98 . Type species Aleurodes quercusaquaticae Quaintance, 1900: 35–36 , by original designation.

DIAGNOSIS AND COMMENTS. As interpreted here, Aleuroplatus comprises species with the following combination of characters: cuticle usually black or brownish, occasionally pale; margin regularly crenulate, the marginal outline and/or teeth modified at caudal and thoracic tracheal openings to form an indentation or a “comb” which may be very marked or quite subtle; submargin not differentiated from dorsal disc by a fold or furrow; transverse moulting sutures not reaching puparial margin; vasiform orifice subcircular to subcordate, operculum occupying most of orifice and obscuring lingula; first abdominal setae absent; dorsal surface usually very flat, abdominal rhachis usually absent; venter often heavily sculptured, caudal and thoracic tracheal folds often marked.

Although the type species was described from the New World (Florida), Aleuroplatus currently accommodates a disparate worldwide assemblage of around 80 described species: these species include a great range of characteristics, and not all of them answer the rather loose diagnosis given here. Certainly, Aleuroplatus is a polyphyletic assemblage and is in much need of revision.

In Belize, only two described species have been identified (see below). However, 14 other taxa have been placed in Aleuroplatus , with varying degrees of certainty, from material amassed during this study (see Appendix 1).