Haplothrips biformis Moulton

Vierbergen, Gijsbertus, 2014, Thysanoptera intercepted in the Netherlands on plant products from Ethiopia, with description of two new species of the genus Thrips, Zootaxa 3765 (3), pp. 269-278 : 277

Haplothrips biformis Moulton

This species is known from Ethiopia only. The material Moulton (1928) used for his description was taken in the Jem-Jem Forest on 22.ix.1926 by J. Omer-Cooper. Hugh Scott collected in the same period there and he reported Meyrick (1932) some peculiarities of this location. The forest, “about 45 miles west of Addis Abeba, is a dense forest composed mainly of lofty conifers, Juniperus procera and Podocarpus , but with a great variety of other trees and bushes, and open grassy and flowery glades”. Numerous females and males of H. biformis were sampled there from Asteraceae , identified as Guizotia and Coreopsis . Due to these common host plants and the occurrence in high number the species is probably not rare in the Region around Addis Abeba. Additionally, it was found again there in 1980 ( Jenser 1989). During import inspection it was collected twice from Ethiopian products in the Rijnsburg flower auction (2.xii.2004, Rosa cut flower, 1 female; 25.iv.2007, Dianthus cut flower, 1 female, J.G. de Zeeuw). The female of H. biformis has the following combination of discriminating characters: all dorsal setae light and transparent; antennal segment III with two sense cones, light brown in colour, other segments dark brown (Fig. 23); length of postocular setae slightly longer than distance between hind ocelli (Fig. 24); pronotal anteromarginal setae minute to about 1.5 times the diameter of an ocellus; fore wings with 5–8 duplicated cilia (Fig. 25); abdominal tube about 2.5 times longer than basal width (Fig. 26); postocular, pronotal epimeral and posteroangular, basal fore wing and lateral abdominal setae apically pointed.