Australian insectsFroggatt, Walter W. (Walter Wilson)
Science
Australian insects
Froggatt, Walter W. (Walter Wilson)
Insects -- Australia
The Sugar lerp, _Psylla eucalypti_, whose larvae cover the leaves
of several species of gum trees with their white woolly shells, was
described by Dobson from Tasmania (Pro. Royal Soc. Van Diemen’s Land,
1851). It is a slender little green creature with very long face lobes,
and, when crawling about, turns the tip of its body upwards, so that it
looks as if it were walking on its head. It is now placed in the Genus
_Spondyliaspis_.
In the same year (1851) Walker published his Homoptera (Cat. Brit.
Museum) in which he recorded 5 species, all from Tasmania; and it was
not until 1898 that they were again noticed when Maskell described 3
species from Australia (Trans. N. Zealand Inst.); and Schwarz defined
another (Pro. Ent. Soc. Washington) in 1897. Between the years 1900 and
1903 I contributed three papers (Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W.) monographing
our species, in which 64 new species are added to our fauna. I followed
Low in the classification of the sub-families, adding Scott’s fifth
division for those with small heads and no face lobes.
In the LIVIINAE, the front of the head is not produced into face lobes;
the stalk of the cubitus is either shorter, as long as, or longer than
the lower branch of the cubitus. _Crewiis longipennis_ is of a general
bright red tint, and is ¼ of an inch in length; it ranges from Tasmania
to the North of New South Wales. The larva forms a rounded pale yellow
lerp covered with fine woolly filaments upon the leaves of gum trees.
_Lasiopsylla rotundipennis_ forms a large, flattened, irregularly
rounded white scale on the foliage of _Eucalyptus melliodora_, under
which the flattened, pale green larva hides.
The Sub-family APHALARINAE contains a number of small species, and
the head is produced in front into face lobes, with the stalk of the
cubitus as long as or longer than the stalk of the sub-costa. They
usually form lerp scales; but some are naked, or clothed with soft
white woolly filaments.
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