Thysanoptera, Haliday, 1836

Ebratt-Ravelo, Everth, Castro-Avila, Angela & Goldaracena-Lafuente, Arturo, 2024, Updated checklist of the order Thysanoptera in Colombia, Zootaxa 5489 (1), pp. 192-203 : 195-200

Our survey reports 183

Thysanoptera

species for Colombia, belonging to the families Aeolothripidae , Heterothripidae , Phlaeothripidae , and Thripidae ( Table 1 ). The fieldwork revealed 38 new species records for the country, most of which are Frankliniella species (14 spp.).

Thripidae is the most diverse family, with 142 species. Within this family, the richest genera are Frankliniella with 67 species, followed by Scirtothrips with 10 species and Thrips with nine species. This makes Colombia the South American country with the highest richness of the speciose genus Frankliniella ( Ortíz 1977; Cavalleri & Mound 2012; Lima & Miyasato 2017; De Borbón & Zamar 2018; Cazorla-Perfetti 2019), which reflects the wide altitudinal and floristic Colombian diversity. On the other hand, only five of the almost 30 Panchaetothripinae species in South America ( Lima et al. 2021) are recorded in Colombia. This indicates that the richness of thrips in Colombia is still underrepresented, and more surveys should be conducted in the country. All these species are primarily phytophagous, and some are mentioned as pests ( Mound et al. 2022). The family Heterothripidae comprises 14 species in four genera in Colombia. All Heterothrips and Scutothrips species feed exclusively on flowers, whereas Aulacothrips species are ectoparasites of treehoppers ( Mound & Marullo 1996; Cavalleri & Kaminski 2014).

Aeolothripidae is represented by seven species in five genera. This family includes facultative or obligatory predatory species, such as those in the genera Franklinothrips and Stomatothrips , and the flower-living Aeolothrips ( Mound & Marullo 1996) . Additionally, 20 species are classified in Phlaeothripidae , with 18 belonging to the large subfamily Phlaeothripinae , which includes species with a wide range of feeding behaviors. The two species recorded in the subfamily Idolothripinae are known to ingest fungal spores ( Mound & Marullo 1996).

Phlaeothripidae currently comprises more than 3,700 species worldwide and is the richest group in the order (ThripsWiki 2023). The relatively low number of species in this group in our list likely results from the lack of extensive sampling in specific microhabitats such as leaf litter, dead twigs, and galls, where these insects tend to be more diverse.

The species Frankliniella bagnalliana Hood (catalog number NHMUK014233252 , NHMUK014233188 ) and Liothrips vernoniae Moulton (catalog number NHMUK014745045 , NHMUK014745063 , NHMUK014745044 , NHMUK014745062 , NHMUK014745064 , NHMUK014745049 , NHMUK014745050 ) were included in this article, from specimens previously collected in Colombia and deposited at NHM, however, they are not mentioned in the scientific literature. Concerning the identification labels for the L. vernoniae slides, curiously, the species is not indicated. Only the genus is mentioned. It is necessary to conduct a subsequent review of these slides to corroborate the information.