Aleurothrixus Quaintance & Baker, 1914

Manzari, Shahab & Quicke, Donald L. J., 2006, A cladistic analysis of whiteflies, subfamily Aleyrodinae (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodidae), Journal of Natural History 40 (44 - 46), pp. 2423-2554 : 2471-2472

Aleurothrixus Quaintance & Baker, 1914

Type-species: Aleyrodes howardi Quaintance, 1907 , a junior synonym of Aleurodes floccosa Maskell, 1895 .

Hempelia Sampson & Drews, 1941 . Type-species: Hempelia chivelensis Sampson & Drews, 1941 . Syn. n.

Comments: As already discussed, seven of the 10 examined species of Aleurothrixus including the type-species, A. floccosus (Maslell) , as well as Hempelia were recovered in a monophyletic clade with Aleurocerus ( Figure 20 ). The syntype material of the type-species of monobasic genus Hempelia showed no clear differences from Aleurothrixus that appear to be of generic significance and here Hempelia is regarded as a junior synonym of Aleurothrixus syn. n.

Aleurothrixus antidesmae Takahashi and A. smilaceti Takahashi are closely related to each other and do not seem to be congeneric with the type-species. A different genus is needed for them; almost certainly a new one. The situation is the same for the American species, A. interrogationis (Bemis) , but it differs from these two Asian species. It was recovered within some species of Aleuroplatus and its placement in Aleurothrixus is doubtful (species incertae sedis).

Figures

Figure 20. The terminal clade of the strict consensus tree of UW-MPTs. Figures above branches show bootstrap and Jacknife (underlined figures) values. Figure with an asterisk indicate the same value for both bootstrap and Jacknife. Black rectangular and the figure below indicate the Bremer support. (A) Aleurocerus musae Russell; (B) Hempelia chivelensis Sampson & Drews; (C) Aleurothrixus proximans Bondar.