Brachythrips Reuter, 1899

Mound, Laurence A., 2024, New generic synonyms amongst Thysanoptera Phlaeothripinae listed from Europe and the Mediterranean area, Zootaxa 5428 (1), pp. 146-150 : 148-149

Brachythrips Reuter

( Fig. 11 )

Brachythrips Reuter, 1899: 28 .

Type species Brachythrips flavicornis Reuter , by monotypy.

This genus was erected by Reuter (1899) for a single species that was known only from a single dry carded specimen found near Turku on the western coast of Finland. Turku is the old capital of Finland and was a major shipping port in the 1800’s with trading connections across the Atlantic. No further specimens of this species have ever been found, despite several workers over many years being interested in the Thysanoptera of Scandinavia. There is thus no evidence that this thrips is a member of the European fauna, and the single specimen of flavicornis seems likely to have been imported on sailing ships, possibly from North America. Priesner (1930) arranged for the carded specimen of flavicornis to be slide mounted in Canada balsam so that he could redescribe it, and that slide was deposited in the Finnish Natural History Museum. In providing a new description of this specimen Priesner did not state anything about the number of antennal sense cones, but he also wrote that “man kann also sagen” that Brachythrips flavicornis is a species of Liothrips . The head of the specimen is short and Rhynchothrips -like ( Fig. 11 ), as in Liothrips pruni from northeastern America and Liothrips gaviotae from California. There seems no reason to dispute Priesner’s tentative opinion, and Brachythrips Reuter is therefore considered a new synonym of the genus Liothrips Uzel , with Liothrips flavicornis (Reuter) as a new combination.

The generic relationships of Brachythrips dirghavadana Ramakrishna from India, the only other species listed under the name Brachythrips , are not clear. Ananthakrishnan and Sen (1980) suggest in a key to genera of Phlaeothripidae that this species should be placed in a new but un-named genus. Certainly the elongate and curved maxillary stylets of the species are unusual ( Fig. 12 ), but in the absence of further specimens from India Liothrips dirghavadana (Ramakrishna) is here considered a new combination.

Figures

FIGURES 8–16. European problem genera. Bebelothrips flavicinctus 8–10: (8) head; (9) tergites IX–X; (10) antenna. (11) Brachythrips flavicornis holotype. (12) Brachythrips dirghavadana head and pronotum. Euryaplothrips crassus 13–15: (13) head and pronotum; (14) prosternites; (15) antenna. (16) Haplothrips angusticornis meso & metanota – arrows indicate tegula.