Pseudococcus africanus Collizza, 1933

Williams, D. J. & Matile-Ferrero, D., 2020, Report on two African mealybug species (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha Coccomorpha), Zootaxa 4750 (3), pp. 439-440 : 439

Pseudococcus africanus Collizza

This species was described from MOZAMBIQUE, Namialo District, on Urochloa sp. and from Lugenda, Niassa District on Panicum sp., (both Poaceae ) by Collizza (1933). According to Ben-Dov (1994), the depository of the type material is unknown. Collizza’s description and illustration were adequate for the time.

There are three slides, each containing a single specimen, in The Natural History Museum, London, each labelled as follows in a neat but unknown handwriting:

Mozambique River, Lugenda, north Niassa, Dr Corrado Colizza [sic].

The printed slide labels are of the British Museum (Natural History). We believe that the specimens may have been sent by Collizza for an opinion and belong to the original material later described by him. The specimens agree with Collizza’s description and illustration: the species, however, belongs to the genus Peliococcus Borchsenius , to which it is here transferred as Peliococcus africanus (Collizza) comb. n.