Callococcithrips fuscipennis (Moulton) Moulton, 2007

Mound, Laurence A. & Wells, Alice, 2007, A new genus for an Australian thrips (Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripinae) presumed predatory on a waxy eriococcid (Hemiptera, Coccoidea), Zootaxa 1645, pp. 57-61 : 59-60

Callococcithrips fuscipennis (Moulton) comb.n.

Rhynchothrips fuscipennis Moulton, 1968: 97

Teuchothrips fuscipennis (Moulton) ; Mound & Houston, 1987: 18 This species was described from a holotype female with one male and two female paratypes, collected by W.W. Froggatt at Canberra, 14.i.1927. The holotype slide (in the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco) bears the unpublished information “from woolly covering of mealybugs”. Periodically, C. fuscipennis is common in the Canberra region and has also been seen from Victoria; the host plant, Kunzea ericoides , is widespread in south-eastern Australia. Populations of the eriococcid and the thrips were high in the years 2000 to 2002, but both insect species became difficult to find in 2004 and 2005, which years were particularly dry. As with so many insect species in this area, populations seem to be remarkably unstable from year to year.

Unfortunately, this thrips was described in a paper that was prepared for publication 17 years after Moulton’s death, and the specific epithet fuscipennis was used for three newly described species in three different genera: Smerinthothrips fuscipennis Moulton (1968: 93) is now a synonym of Teuchothrips ater (Girault) , and Teuchothrips fuscipennis Moulton (1968: 100) is now a synonym of Heligmothrips erinaceus (Karny) ( Mound & Houston, 1987) . Rhynchothrips fuscipennis itself has been listed under Teuchothrips for the past 20 years, pending studies on the many unidentifiable species of Phlaeothripinae named by Moulton and particularly by A.A.Girault ( Mound 1996; Crespi et al., 2004). Progressively, the identity and host associations of various members of the Teuchothrips -complex are being elucidated, based on field and laboratory studies ( Mound & Morris, 2007).