Pulvinaria camelicola Signoret

Moghaddam, Masumeh & Watson, Gillian W., 2024, The Scale Insects Of Iran (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha) Part 3 The Soft Scales (Coccidae) And Other Families, Zootaxa 5542 (1), pp. 1-202 : 80-82

Pulvinaria camelicola Signoret

( Fig. 33 )

Pulvinaria camelicola Signoret, 1873b: 32 .

Field characteristics: Live adult female elongate oval, slightly convex; body yellow with small reddish spots, quite similar to P. floccifera ( Tanaka & Kamitani 2022) . Mature adult female produces a relatively long ovisac.

Microscopic diagnosis: Slide-mounted adult female body elongate oval. Stigmatic clefts rather shallow. Anal cleft of moderate depth.

Dorsum. Derm entirely membranous; dermal areolations well developed. Setae spiniform, scattered throughout. Preopercular pores oval to circular, often difficult to see, present anterior to anal plates. Submarginal dorsal tubercles present, numbering 0−4 on each side. Tubular ducts frequent throughout, each situated within an areolation. Anal plates together quadrate, each plate with 3 or 4 apical setae. Anal ring usually bearing 5−7 setae.

Margin. Marginal setae with well-developed basal sockets and with tips fimbriate, frayed, spatulate, split, or simply pointed, those on either side of anal cleft tending to be longer; each side with 12–25 setae between anterior and posterior stigmatic clefts. Stigmatic clefts distinct but shallow, each containing 3 setae, median seta about 2−4 times longer than lateral setae.

Venter. Derm membranous. Pregenital disc-pores mostly each with 5−8 loculi, present around genital opening, and on medial areas of preceding 3 to 5 abdominal segments; a small group also present lateral to each metacoxa and occasionally to each mesocoxa also. Spiracular disc-pores each with 5 loculi, present in a narrow band between each spiracle and margin. Microducts scattered throughout venter. Tubular ducts of 3 types: Type I with a large outer ductule and a broad inner ductule ending in a well-developed flower-shaped terminal gland: present in posterior medial area of head, medial area of all thoracic segments and anterior abdominal segments, also in inner submarginal area extending from near anterior abdominal segments to prothoracic segments; Type II with a rather narrower outer ductule ending in a shallow cup-shaped invagination, and a long, slender inner ductule with a well-developed terminal gland, present medially on posterior abdominal segments; and submarginal band of tubular ducts but reaching only as far forward as posterior spiracular pore band; and Type III with a short, filamentous inner ductule and minute terminal gland, present in a broad submarginal band on thoracic and abdominal segments, but mostly concentrated on posterior area, intermixed with Type I or Type II ducts. Posterior 3 abdominal segments each with 1 pair of long ventral setae on medial area. With 2–6 pairs of long setae present between antennal bases; other setae short and fine, distributed over entire venter. Legs well developed, each with an articulated tibio-tarsal joint and an articulatory sclerosis; claw without a denticle; both claw digitules rather broad and slightly shorter than thin tarsal digitules. Antennae each 6–8 segmented ( Tanaka & Kamitani 2022).

Distribution: Pulvinaria camelicola has been reported from 54 countries in five zoogeograpical regions ( García Morales et al. 2016), despite it not having been well described until very recently ( Tanaka & Kamitani, 2022).

Host-plants: Pulvinaria camelicola has been recorded on host-plants in 62 genera belonging to 44 families ( García Morales et al. 2016). The host-plant in Iran was not recorded by Bodenheimer (1944b).

Economic importance: Not recorded in Iran.

Natural enemies: None recorded in Iran

Comments: Bodenheimer (1944b) recorded P. camelicola from Iran, but neither his material nor any other specimens from Iran have been seen in the present study so it has not been possible to confirm its presence in the country. It is possible that Bodenheimer’s (1944b) record may have been a misidentification of P. floccifera .

In the past, several little-studied species (including P. camelicola ) have been misidentified as the well-known polyphagous pest species, P. floccifera , because its original description is too brief and subsequent redescriptions were based on misidentified material. This situation subjectively invalidates the identity of P. floccifera because several species have been studied under the same (inappropriate) scientific name in the absence of type fixation, leading to taxonomic confusion ( García Morales et al. 2016).

Tanaka & Amano (2007) found that the morphology of five adult female syntypes of P. floccifera did not correspond with the descriptions of several of the species that were considered synonyms. To confer taxonomic stability to P. floccifera , in accordance with the provisions of Article 23.3.5 of the Fourth edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN 1999), its oldest synonym ( P. camelicola ) was revived and redescribed by Tanaka & Kanitani (2022) based on Japanese specimens of a distinct species hitherto misidentified as P. floccifera . However, they could not determine which other species had been misidentified as P. floccifera because of the difficulty of obtaining the relevant type specimens for study. Aspects of this taxonomic confusion therefore have not yet been resolved and molecular studies are needed to further elucidate the species boundaries.

As presently understood, P. camelicola is close to P. floccifera and P. urbicola in having multilocular disc-pores each with 6‒8 loculi and similarly distributed ventral tubular ducts, each with a filamentous inner ductule and lacking a terminal gland ( Tanaka & Kamitani 2022). Pulvinaria camelicola differs from these species by having (contrasting character states of P. floccifera and P. urbicola given in parenthesis): (1) large, well-developed dorsal areolations (areolations rarely present, small and restricted to submarginal areas); and (2) dorsum with a small number of tubular ducts (dorsum mostly lacking tubular ducts) ( Tanaka & Kamitani 2022).

Figures

FIGURE 33. Adult female of Pulvinaria camelicola Signoret, from Tanaka & Kamitani (2022) page 441, fig. 1. © Magnolia Press, www.mapress.com/j/zt, reproduced with permission from the authors and the copyright holder. Distributions of tubular duct types (i), (ii) and (iii) shown; for details of their respective distributions, see also the diagnosis.