Meiothrips Priesner

Dang, Li-Hong & Qiao, Ge-Xia, 2012, The genus Meiothrips Priesner (Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripidae, Idolothripinae) with a key and a new species from China, ZooKeys 177, pp. 59-68 : 60

Meiothrips Priesner

Idolothrips (Meiothrips) Priesner, 1929: 197. Type-species: Idolothrips (Meiothrips) annulatus Priesner, now considered a synonym of Acanthinothrips annulipes Bagnall ( Palmer and Mound 1978).

Meiothrips Priesner: Bagnall 1934: 494; 1964: 98; Kudo and Ananthakrishnan 1974: 385; Palmer and Mound 1978: 209.

Generic diagnosis.

Body large. Head much longer than width across eyes, prolonged in front of eyes, usually shorter than broad except in one species about twice as long as broad; eyes normal or obviously prolonged on ventral surface; interocellar, postocellar, postocular, mid-dorsal and posterior-dorsal setae usually well developed, sometimes small. Maxillary stylets short and far apart. Antennae 8-segmented, very slender; segment III longest, usually more than twice width across eyes; segments III and IV with 2 and 4 sense-cones. Pronotum major setae usually well developed setae, sometimes aa small and epimeral accessory always minute; notopleural sutures incomplete; basantra and ferna present. Mesopraesternum boat-shaped. Metathoracic sternopleural sutures absent. Wings usually fully developed with or without numerous duplicated cilia. All legs normal, femora with several spine-setae. Pelta always broad, lateral lobes broadly joined to median major lobe; abdominal tergites II–VII each with two pairs of sigmoid wing-retaining setae; tergites V–VIII never with lateral tubercles; tube much longer than head, surface with numerous fine setae, sometimes with 2 rows of stout tubercles and many large and small tubercles or denticles on dorsal surface; anal setae much shorter than tube.

Distribution.

China (Zhejiang, Yunnan, Hainan); India, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand.

Biology.

The species of Meiothrips are presumed to all feed only on fungal-spores. In the field, Meiothrips natural populations with deposited egg masses have been observed only on newly-dead dry or withered leaves hanging on branches.

Comments.

This genus is close to Idolothrips and Bactrothrips . The morphological characters of the females, and the head and thorax of males, are similar in the three genera. Mound and Palmer (1983) pointed out that the species are intermediate in structure between Idolothrips and Bactrothrips , such that each could be placed in a separate genus if the traditional concepts employed in the Bactrothrips complex were accepted. Meiothrips kurosawai is particularly unusual with the eye prolonged posteriorly on the ventral surface of the head, and a long preocular projection. The systematic position and relationships of these genera require further study.

Key to Meiothrips species