Gigantococcus ewarti (Newstead, 1896)

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 : 49

Gigantococcus ewarti group

Four species, Gi. euphorbiae , Gi. ewarti , Gi. gowdeyi , and Gi. madagascariensis , were described as forming a marsupium at maturity. A fifth species, Gi. longisetosus , forms a marsupium, but Newstead (1911) did not describe this structure in his original description. These species have identical pores, but are widely distributed across the Afrotropical region ( South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Madagascar and Tanzania, respectively) and we cannot confidently synonymize all of them without further study. Three other species, Gi. bicolor , Gi. cajani and Gi. caudatus (first collected in Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda, respectively) also closely resemble one another and were described originally as lacking an ovisac or marsupium (Newstead), but examination of the type material of Gi. bicolor and Gi. caudatus reveals that they are teneral adult females that had not yet fully formed the marsupium. Gi. cajani was described as an adult female from immature specimens and is possibly a synonym of a member of this group. We compared the third-instar nymph of Gi. cajani and Gi. gowdeyi and found them to be identical, but refrain from synonymizing them without further information. In the key to species, we separate the former five species from the latter three species by the length and density of hair-like setae around the margin of the body. In life, Gi. euphorbiae and Gi. gowdeyi are described as covered in a thick waxy secretion, and Gi. madagascariensis , Gi. bicolor , Gi. caudatus , and Gi. ewarti are described as having waxy tufts forming longitudinal rows. Newstead commented that the specimens of Gi. longisetosus were too badly damaged for him to give an adequate description of the waxy secretion.