An Account of the Insects Noxious to Agriculture and Plants in New Zealand: The Scale Insects (Coccididae)Maskell, William Miles
Science
An Account of the Insects Noxious to Agriculture and Plants in New Zealand: The Scale Insects (Coccididae)
Maskell, William Miles
Insects -- New Zealand; Scale insects
Adult female pink, covered with thin white meal; slightly elongated,
sometimes globular; flat beneath, convex above; segmented, the segments
indistinct. Length reaching about 1/10in. Antennæ of eight joints, very
short. Feet normal, very short; upper digitules short, lower digitules
absent (?). Anal tubercles extremely small and inconspicuous; each has
three conical spines, but no hairs. Anogenital ring large, with six
hairs. On the dorsum are numbers of small circular spinnerets.
Adult male unknown.
Habitat--On the common tussock grass, _Poa anceps (australis?)_, Mount
Grey Downs and Port Hills, Canterbury; either just above the ground, or
more often an inch or two below the surface.
A species clearly distinct in form and habit.
Genus: PSEUDOCOCCUS, Westwood.
Adult females covered with cottony secretion; stationary; antennæ
of nine joints; anogenital ring conspicuous, with six hairs; upper
digitules of the foot absent.
64. Pseudococcus asteliæ, Maskell.
N.Z. Trans., Vol. XVI., 1883, p. 139.
(Plate XVIII., Fig. 2.)
Adult female about 1/10in. long, yellowish-brown, covered with a not
very abundant white cotton; segmented; anal tubercles inconspicuous;
anal ring with six hairs. Antennæ with nine joints, of which the
third, fourth, and fifth are the longest; the second, sixth, and ninth
a little shorter; the first, seventh, and eighth the shortest. The
fourth, fifth, and sixth are the narrowest, the two ends of the antennæ
being thicker than the middle. The eighth joint is a little expanded at
the tip; and the ninth is fusiform, with a shallow depression at the
extremity. All the joints have a few long hairs, and on the eighth is
one a good deal stronger than the others. The legs have the tibiæ twice
as long as the tarsus; the claw is slender, and has no tooth on the
inner edge. There are only two digitules (the lower pair), which are
long and fine. The trochanter bears one short bristle. The whole leg
is slender and long. The eyes are tubercular and smooth, showing after
maceration in potash a small dark terminal spot. The body is covered
with a number of spinnerets of two kinds: those with simple concentric
circles are the largest, and are found all over the integument; the
others are multilocular, and are placed in groups at the edges of
the segments and also in great numbers at the cephalic and abdominal
extremities. Interspersed with these spinnerets are several hairs,
mostly very short, but on the head are some pretty long. From the
anal tubercles spring two strong setæ with tubercular bases, not very
long. The mentum is dimerous, and bears a few hairs on the tip. In the
groups of spinnerets at the edges of the segments are found a few small
conical spines. The four spiracles are small and simple.
Adult male unknown.
Habitat--On _Astelia_ sp., in forests, Hawke's Bay.
Allied to _P. Mespili_, Geoffroy; but differs in the antennæ, feet, and
spinnerets.
Subdivision III.--COCCIDÆ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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