Orchid Thrips

Minor pest in greenhouses, major pest of citrus fruits and bananas (Mound and Marullo, 1996).

Adults collected in March.

Alberta (Chiasson, 1986), Mexico, Florida, California, Louisiana (Stannard, 1968), Trinidad, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Grenada, Dominica (Mound and Marullo, 1996).

The body varies around 1.3mm in length, and is pale yellow. The head and thorax are a brighter yellow. The extreme apex of antennal segment 4, the apical third of segment 5, the apical half of segment 6, all of segments 7 and 8, and the bases of both pairs of wings are brown. Both the fore and hind wings also have a brown band in the middle. The head lacks setae close to the fore ocellus. Females are macropterous. The area around the spiracles on abdominal segment 8 is stippled, and extends up to the anterior margin (Stannard, 1968). The pronotum has 2 pairs of well developed, epimeral setae, of which the inner pair is longer (Stannard, 1968). Sternites and tergites have a posteromarginal craspedum (including tergite 8) (Mound and Marullo, 1996).

In northern temperate regions, this species is found in green houses (Mound and Marullo, 1996).

This species is not known to produce males (Mound and Marullo 1996).

This species feeds on citrus fruits and bananas (Ananthakrishnan, 1984).