Anthocoris minki Dohrn, 1860

Ballal, Chandish R., Akbar, Shahid Ali, Yamada, Kazutaka, Wachkoo, Aijaz Ahmad & Varshney, Richa, 2018, Annotated catalogue of the flower bugs from India (Heteroptera: Anthocoridae, Lasiochilidae), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 58 (1), pp. 207-226 : 209

Anthocoris minki Dohrn, 1860

Anthocoris minki Dohrn, 1860: 162 . SYNTYPES: Germany, Krefeld (lost, see LE QUESNE 1958: 125).

Detailed list of synonyms was presented by PÉRICART (1996).

Distribution in India. Himachal Pradesh ( BALLAL & YAMADA 2016).

General distribution. Europe, North Africa, Palaearctic Asia ( PÉRICART 1996, AUKEMA et al. 2013).

Biology. The species is a well-known predator of aphid and psyllid pests of many crops in Europe and has been employed as successful natural biocontrol agent against them (mainly in Turkey against pistachio psyllid Agonoscena pistaciae Burckhardt & Lauterer, 1989 and almond aphid Brachycaudus amygdalinus Schouteden, 1905). In India, the species has been reported to inhabit peach trees and feed on aphid Brachycaudus helichrysi Kaltenbach, 1843 ( BALLAL & YAMADA 2016).

Comment. There are two subspecies, A. minki minki Dohrn, 1860 (Europe) and A. minki pistaciae Wagner, 1957 (from Mediterranean to Central Asia and China), but it is not clear which of these is present in India. ÖNDER (1982) believes that there is no significant difference between the two subspecies and they should be treated as synonyms.