Ceratothripoides brunneus Bagnall

Mound, Laurence A. & Nickle, David A., 2009, The Old-World genus Ceratothripoides (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) with a new genus for related New-World species, Zootaxa 2230, pp. 57-63 : 59

Ceratothripoides brunneus Bagnall

Ceratothripoides brunneus Bagnall, 1918a: 201 Physothrips marshalli Bagnall, 1918b: 66 Physothrips ventralis Hood, 1918: 116

This species was described originally from a single female with deformed antennae. This female was collected at Aburi, Ghana, 15.xi.1915, in Cola shoots and buds. The syntypes of marshalli were collected at this same locality, 30.x.1915, from flowers of Hibiscus sinensis . The original specimens of these two species have been re-examined and clearly represent the same species. Hood described ventralis from “numerous specimens” in various flowers from Kamerun and Nigeria (Ibadan). Pitkin (1978) selected as Lectotype of ventralis the female specimen that Hood had labeled as Holotype, and this was collected in Cameroon, 23 November 1915, from flowers of monkshood. This specimen lacks metanotal campaniform sensilla and the forewing clavus lacks a discal seta, but on tergite VIII the campaniform sensilla are posterior to the median setae. The first two character states indicate that, based on this Lectotype, the species ventralis is correctly considered a synonym of brunneus . The paralectotypes of ventralis from Cameroon in the USNM are also identifiable as brunneus , and of the 24 paralectotypes of ventralis in the USNM from Nigeria that are mentioned by Pitkin (1978), 23 are also identifiable as brunneus . However, one paralectotype from Nigeria, collected on Melia azederach , is here identified as revelatus , based on the two character states indicated in the key above, and a second paralectotype with identical data has also been studied (in BMNH) that also represents revelatus . In the Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt there are two female and one male paratypes of ventralis that were collected in Cameroon, and these represent brunneus .

This species can be distinguished from other members of this genus by means of the characters in the key above, but the position of the paired campaniform sensilla on tergite VIII is not constant even in females, and in males these sensilla are often close to the posterior margin. Specimens of brunneus have been examined from the following countries: Ghana, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Uganda, Congo, Angola, and South Africa (in BMNH & SMF); Netherlands (in greenhouse) (in SMF); Puerto Rico and Peninsular Malaysia (in ANIC). This was one of the most common Thripidae collected during a recent survey of crop thrips in Peninsular Malaysia ( Mound & Azidah, 2009). Two males have been studied (in ANIC) that were collected on Citrus at Maricao, Puerto Rico, “ 4.10.07 ”, and submitted for identification by Prof. Irma Cabrera.