Pseudodendrothrips mori (Niwa)

Rasool, Iftekhar, Mound, Laurence A., Soliman, Ahmed M. & Aldhafer, Hathal M., 2021, The Dendrothripinae (Thysanoptera, Thripidae) of SaudiArabia, withnew records one new species, and revised status of Pseudodendrothrips stuardoi (Moulton), Zootaxa 4999 (3), pp. 219-227 : 223-224

Pseudodendrothrips mori (Niwa)

Belothrips mori Niwa, 1908: 180 .

Described originally from Japan, with the holotype now unknown, this species has been re-described by Stannard (1968) and Kudo (1984). It is closely related to P. bhattii from which it can be distinguished by the pale body with head and fore wings pale ( Alavi et al. 2014; Masumoto & Okajima 2017). Moreover, the female of P. mori is also similar to the female of P. darci , a species from northern Australia and southeast Asia, although that is distinguished by the presence of a pair of stout pointed setae laterally on abdominal segment IX ( Mound 1999). In addition to the character states indicated in the key above, it seems that P. mori and P. bhattii differ from many species of this genus (including aegyptiacus and stuardoi ) in having ocellar setae pair I anterior to or anterolateral to the first ocellus, instead of clearly lateral or even completely absent. Currently P. mori is known from Iran but not from Saudi Arabia. The records of P. mori from Yemen, and also from UAE, require further checking as they are possibly misidentifications of P. stuardoi .

Material studied. JAPAN, Chiba Narita , female from leaf of Morus bombycis , 7.vi.2015 (M. Masumoto) in ANIC .