Aleurothrixus floccosus (Maskell), 1914

Hernández-Suárez, Estrella, Martin, Jon H., Gill, Raymond J., Bedford, Ian D., Malumphy, Christopher P., Betancort, J. Alfredo Reyes & Carnero, Aurelio, 2012, 3212, Zootaxa 3212, pp. 1-76 : 9

Aleurothrixus floccosus (Maskell)

( Figures 3, 44, 45)

Aleurodes floccosa Maskell, 1896: 432 .

Aleurothrixus floccosus (Maskell) Quaintance & Baker, 1914: 103 .

horridus ( Hempel, 1899: 394) ( Aleyrodes ) [Synonymised by Quaintance & Baker, 1917: 403.]

howardi ( Quaintance, 1907: 91) (Aleyrodes) [Synonymised by Costa Lima, 1942: 425.]

Distribution in the Canary Islands: LANZAROTE: Arrecife, Las Breñas, Playa Blanca, San Bartolomé, Tinajo. FUERTEVENTURA: Corralejo, Antigua, Pájara. GRAN CANARIA: Agaete, Arucas, La Aldea, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Marzagán, San Agustín, Santa Brígida, Santa Lucía, Telde, Valsequillo. TENERIFE: Bahía del Duque, Cuevas Negras, Güímar, Las Galletas, Los Cristianos, Los Realejos, Playa San Juan, Punta del Hidalgo, Puerto de la Cruz, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Valle de San Lorenzo. EL HIERRO: Frontera. LA GOMERA: Barranco Santiago, Puerto Santiago, San Sebastián, Valle Gran Rey, Valle Hermoso. LA PALMA: El Paso, Santa Cruz de La Palma. Elsewhere: Neotropical Region: widely distributed; Neartic Region: Florida. Palaeartic Region: Mediterranean basin, Macaronesia, Japan; Ethiopian Region: widely distributed. Malagasian Region: Mauritius, La Réunion. Oriental Region: India. Austro-Oriental Region: Philippines, Singapore. Pacific Region: Galapagos Is., Tahiti.

Host plants in the Canary Islands: Azadirachta indica , Citrus limon , Citrus maxima , Citrus sinensis , Coccoloba uvifera , Codiaeum variegatum , Melia azedarach , Passiflora edulis . Other host plants listed: moderately polyphagous, including Bougainvillea sp. , Citrus nobilis , Mangifera indica , Psidium guajava .

Comments: Aleurothrixus floccosus , commonly known as the “woolly whitefly”, is an economically important pest of citrus. In the field, it can be easily distinguished by the finely tangled flocculent white wax obscuring the immature stages ( Fig. 44, 45), and copious excretion of honeydew. The species is native to the neotropical region, and has been slowly extending its range for many years. In mainland Spain, A. floccosus was introduced into Málaga by 1968 and spread across all the citrus-growing areas in the country in just a few years ( Llorens-Climent & Garrido-Vivas, 1992). The first record of this species in the Canary Islands was from 1966 ( Anonymous, 1971); however, material collected from the Canaries in 1937 is deposited at the BMNH. Currently, in the archipelago it is a relatively minor pest of Citrus and Codiaeum variegatum , an ornamental shrub, as the parasitoid Cales noacki (Howard) ( Hymenoptera , Aphelinidae ) is naturally controlling A. floccosus populations ( Hernández-Suárez, 1999). Both pale-puparium and dark-puparium populations of A. floccosus have been observed in the Canary Islands, and elsewhere. This variation in puparial cuticular pigmentation between populations was mentioned by Quaintance & Baker (1917), Bink-Moenen (1983) and Martin (1999) and it suggests the possible existence of several races of this species.