Limothrips Haliday

Remarks.

This western Palaearctic genus includes eight species (ThripsWiki 2013), of which four species have been reported from Iran (Bhatti et al. 2009a). Females of this genus can be distinguished easily from other genera of Thripinae by having abdominal tergite X with short, stout, spine-like median setae (zur Strassen 2003a, Masumoto 2010).

Limothrips cerealium Haliday is here recorded from Iran for the first time, based on one apterous female: Azarbaijan-e-Sharghi province: Tabriz, Miyaneh, from harvested wheat, Triticum aestivum L. ( Poaceae), 26.vi.2009, M. Mirab-balou, (in ZJUH).

This species is distinguished from other species by tarsi 1-segmented, absence of ocelli, and antennal segments III and IV with simple sensoria. This European pest of cereal crops is now widespread throughout the temperate and subtropical areas of the world. Adults are usuallymacropterous, but apterae have been recorded from Sardinia (Karny 1914) and Corsica (Mound and Palmer 1973), and now from Iran.