Phlaeothripidae

Mound, Laurence A., Dang, Li-Hong & Tree, Desley J., 2013, Genera of fungivorous Phlaeothripinae (Thysanoptera) from dead branches and leaf-litter in Australia, Zootaxa 3681 (3), pp. 201-224 : 202

Australian Phlaeothripidae

In Australia, there have been extensive studies on this family in recent years, but no identification key exists to the 122 Phlaeothripidae genera listed from this continent (Mound 2013). The subfamily Idolothripinae in Australia was reviewed by Mound (1974), together with a full identification key to genera and species. However, the nomenclature in that study is now out-of-date, although the 23 recorded genera can be identified through a webbased key to the world genera of this sub-family (Mound et al. 2013). In contrast, no identification system is available that treats all of the 99 genera of Phlaeothripinae known from Australia. A few keys are available to some groups within this subfamily: to the 11 genera of the Haplothripini ( Mound & Minaei 2007), to the 30 genera associated with Acacia trees ( Crespi et al. 2004), and to the lesser numbers associated with Casuarina species ( Mound 1970; Mound & Crespi 1992) and Geijera species ( Mound 1971). The purpose of the present study is to provide an identification key to a further 39 genera of Phlaeothripinae known from Australia. These are the genera that include species associated with dead plants, apparently feeding on fungal hyphae. Most of these genera are well characterised, but each of the final five genera in the key is more problematic. The species of Hoplothrips and Hoplandrothrips are now considered to be far more closely related to each other than was indicated by Priesner (1961) who placed these two genera in different major groups. Deplorothrips species share character states that occur in species of both of these two genera, and many of the species placed in Adraneothrips and Psalidothrips could equally well be considered as small species of Hoplandrothrips . The generic classification thus remains unsatisfactory. All of these genera are represented in the Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra (ANIC), and included here are seven genera not previously recorded from this continent: Azaleothrips , Deplorothrips , Malacothrips , Mystrothrips , Preeriella , Terthrothrips , Tylothrips .

A full checklist of the genera and species of Thysanoptera recorded from Australia is web-available (Mound 2013), and full nomenclatural details of all taxa mentioned here are also accessible through the web (ThripsWiki 2013).