Hydatothrips Karny

Type species: Hydatothrips adolfifriderici Karny, 1913: 218 .

The type species of this genus is a common African species. Remarkably, the 42 described members of the genus, including one new species described below, are found across the tropics as far South as Australia, but with none in North America or Europe (ThripsWiki 2016). Mound and Marullo (1996) provided a key to the five species then known from the Neotropics, but three of these ( H. gliricidiae, H. guanacastei and H. volcano) are known only from Costa Rica. The apparent lack of species in South America is possibly an artifact related to the lack of collecting. The authors have seen at least one further member of this genus from South America, but represented only by one damaged specimen not suitable to describe satisfactorily.