Bhattithrips Mound

Mound, Laurence A., 2009, New taxa and new records of Australian Panchaetothripinae (Thysanoptera, Thripidae), Zootaxa 2292, pp. 25-33 : 29

Bhattithrips Mound

Bhattithrips Mound, 1970: 44 . Type-species Heliothrips frontalis Bagnall

Nothing is known of the biology of any of the four species here recognised in this genus, but each is presumed to be leaf-feeding. The genus does not seem to be related to any other Australian Panchaetothripinae , although it is closely related to a monobasic New Zealand genus, Sigmothrips . This has been found living on the seedlings of several unrelated plants in New Zealand ( Mound & Walker, 1982), and Bhattithrips species possibly have a similar host association. S. aoteroana differs from the species of Bhattithrips in having swollen cheeks and elongate setae on the ninth abdominal tergite ( Ward, 1970), but the relationships of these two genera to other Panchaetothripinae are not clear. The two share with Astrothrips the presence on tergite II of specialised areas of sculpture that comprise broadly based and strongly curved microtrichia. However, in Astrothrips species these areas are anterolateral on tergite II, but in Bhattithrips ( Fig. 10 ) and Sigmothrips they are sub-median. The most probable relatives to these two antipodean genera are members of the Neotropical genus Dinurothrips ( Mound et al., 2001) . Character states used previously in identification keys to Bhattithrips species ( Mound, 1970; Wilson, 1975) have been found to be variable, but the sculpture of tergites II–IV is characteristic in each of the four species.

Figures

FIGURES 7 – 12. Bhattithrips borealis. (7) female. (8) antenna. (9) head and pronotum. (10) abdominal tergites I – III.