Crypticerya montserratensis (Riley & Howard, 1890)

Unruh, Corinne M. & Gullan, Penny J., 2008, Identification guide to species in the scale insect tribe Iceryini (Coccoidea: Monophlebidae), Zootaxa 1803 (1), pp. 1-106 : 23-24

Crypticerya montserratensis group

Seven species belong to this group: C. brasiliensis , C. flava , C. montserratensis , C. similis , C. subandina , C. zeteki and an undescribed species from Colombia. These seven species differ from other Crypticerya species by the presence of small multilocular pores with triangular, cruciform or star-shaped centre and 6–8 outer loculi on the ventral margin and mid-dorsal head and thorax.

Crypticerya similis and C. zeteki are almost identical to each other and to C. brasiliensis , C. flava and C. montserratensis and differ by the number of ventral cicatrices (the undescribed species has 11–13, C. similis has seven, C. zeteki has five, the remaining three species have three cicatrices). Crypticerya brasiliensis , C. flava and C. montserratensis appear identical to one another and differ only by the size of the adult female ( C. montserratensis and C. flava are smaller than C. brasiliensis ), the length and density of the marginal long, hair-like setae ( C. brasiliensis has fewer clusters of setae than C. montserratensis or C. flava ) and the density of pores in the ovisac band (this feature might depend on the size of the adult female; C. flava has the least dense ovisac band). Morrison believed C. brasiliensis and C. montserratensis were probably identical (1928: 211), but we found them to be genetically distinct ( Unruh & Gullan, 2008) and the two species look different in life (T. Kondo, UCD, pers. comm.).

Crypticerya subandina differs greatly from the other species in this group as it has very sparse hair-like setae and sparsely scattered multilocular pores across all body segments. The pore types, however, are identical.