Neohydatothrips gracilipes (Hood)

Minaei, Kambiz, 2016, The genus Neohydatothrips (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) in Iran with one new species and first record of a micropterous form, Zootaxa 4189 (2), pp. 367-377 : 374

Neohydatothrips gracilipes (Hood)

Sericothrips gracilipes Hood, 1924: 149

This species is reported from Mexico, several Caribbean countries, Texas, Hawaii, Galapagos Islands, India, Thailand, New Caledonia, as well as northern Australia ( Mound &Marullo, 1996, Bhatti et al. 1999, Hoddle & Mound 2011, Lima & Mound 2016a). It is associated with several common malvaceous weeds especially genus Sida ( Lima & Mound 2016a) . In Iran the species is recorded from Alborz province (central Iran) based on one female collected from Glycyrrhiza glabra (Mirab-balou & Chen 2013). However, most records of this species are from Malvaceae . Glycyrrhiza glabra is the plant that appears to be the host for N. tadzhicus (see below).

Female macroptera. Body and legs mainly yellow, ocellar region weakly shaded, pronotal blotch light brown, anterior margin of mesonotum, and lateral margins of metanotum light brown; tergites II–VII with dark antecostal line and brown shadings antero-laterally; legs yellow with shaded brown areas medially; fore wing pale with faintly shaded area in the basal third, clavus shaded.

Occipital apodeme not confluent with posterior margin of eyes; ocellar triangle weakly and irregularly reticulate; ocellar setae III close together behind fore ocellus. Pronotal sculpture mainly transverse, blotch weakly defined. Metanotum with irregular linear sculpture, without markings between the main lines. Fore wing second vein with no setae; comb of microtrichia incomplete on tergites II–VI, tergites VII–VIII with complete comb of long microtrichia on posterior margin; tergite IX with two pairs of mid-dorsal setae. Sternites III–VI with discal microtrichia medially.

Male not known.

Material studied. None

Comments. According to Lima and Mound (2016), the species most similar to N. gracilipes are N. burungae and N.signifer . Among Palaearctic species, N. gracilipes is very similar to N. tadzhicus (the colour pattern of body, very long mouth cone, ocellar setae III close together behind fore ocellus, shape of metasternum) but they are distinguished by the characters indicated in the key above.