Aleurodicus dispersus Russell

John H. Martin, 2004, Whiteflies of Belize (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae). Part 1 — introduction and account of the subfamily Aleurodicinae Quaintance & Baker, Zootaxa 681, pp. 1-86 : 21

Aleurodicus dispersus Russell

( Figs 3, 63, 123)

Aleurodicus dispersus Russell, 1965: 49 –54. Holotype, Florida [paratypes examined].

DISTRIBUTION. Neotropical Region — widely distributed; Nearctic Region — Florida; Palaearctic Region — Canary Islands, Madeira; Ethiopian Region — Cameroun, Congo, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Sao Tomé, Togo; Malagasian Region — Mauritius; Oriental Region — India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand; Austro­oriental and Pacific Regions — widely distributed; Australia — northern Queensland.

COMMENTS. A. dispersus is one of only two known Aleurodicus species that possess only 4 pairs of abdominal compound pores, in total, on the puparium. A third member of the same small assemblage ( A. flavus Hempel ) has additionally just one pair of tiny compound pores, situated on abdominal segment VII, otherwise strongly resembling A. dispersus .

A. dispersus was particularly unusual in remaining undescribed for many years, despite the accumulation of numerous samples in the USNM collection, most of them interceptions at United States port quarantine facilities; yet it is now the best­known of all Aleurodicus species. It is probable that A. dispersus (the so­called “spiralling whitefly”) is native to the Caribbean and northern South America. Although many of the paratypes are from these native areas, Russell chose a sample from Florida from which to select the holotype. This curious technicality qualifies A.dispersus as one of several neotropical whiteflies to have been described from material sampled in an area of probable introduction. This choice of holotype may have been the result of most other specimens, then available to Russell, being isolated quarantine interceptions with imprecise originating locality data. Since its description, the spiralling whitefly has become almost pan­tropical in its distribution, its rapid radiation having begun in the 1980s ( Martin & Lucas, 1984; Martin 1990).