Genus Caliothrips Daniel

Currently 23 species are recognized in this genus (ThripsWiki 2022), and various members are found widely in the warmer parts of the world. In China, the Western American species, C. fasciatus (Pergande), was recorded from Fujian Province in 1930 based on a single female; that slide is now considered to have been mislabeled when it was prepared in California (Mound et al. 2011). Caliothrips indicus was recorded by Han and Cui (1992), and then repeated by Han (1997) who provided detailed descriptions and measurements; those details are interpreted below as a misidentification of C. quadrifasciatus (Girault) . In 2011, C. insularis (Hood) was recorded from China at Beijing and Hebei (Huang et al. 2011). However, the illustrations in that paper clearly indicate that the specimens were members of a different species, and that can now be identified as C. tongi . Despite this, C. insularis, a species that is widely distributed among the Caribbean islands, is here definitively recorded from China for the first time. As a result, the following three species of Caliothrips are now recognized from China.

Key to Caliothrips species from China

1. Abdominal tergites with transverse sub-parallel lines at lateral thirds and no reticles medially (Fig. 5); pronotum with clearly longitudinal reticles (Fig. 2); fore wing with four dark areas and three pale areas (Fig. 8)................. quadrifasciatus

-. Abdominal tergites with equiangular or longitudinal elongate reticles at lateral thirds and anterior medially (Fig. 4); pronotum with almost equiangular reticles (Figs 1, 3); fore wing with two clear pale areas.................................... 2

2. Head with transverse ridge across the vertex (Fig. 3); fore wing pale sub-basally and sub-apically, medially with a long dark area (Fig. 9); abdominal tergites II–VIII medially with equiangular reticles and internal wrinkles (Fig. 6)............ tongi

-. Head without transverse ridge across the vertex (Fig. 1); fore wing pale basally, dark from fork of veins and gradually paler to sub-apex, dark at apex (Fig. 7); abdominal tergites II–VIII medially with fewer reticles, internal wrinkles only present in anterior reticles, absent in posterior reticles (Fig. 4).................................................... insularis