Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green)

Family

Pseudococcidae

Common name

Pink hibiscus mealybug

Field characters

Body elongate oval; body red-brown to orange-pink; legs white or light yellow; covered by white mealy wax, without bare areas on dorsum; ovisac covers dorsal surface; with 2 or 3 pair of inconspicuous lateral wax filaments, often not visible. Occurring on all above-ground parts of plant. Oviparous, eggs pink. Specimens turning black in 70% alcohol.

Validation characters

Oral-rim tubular ducts numerous over dorsum, often with more than 30 on some abdominal segments; oral rims with distinctively shaped rim, outer edge of rim indefinite unlike most oral rims that have a definite edge; with 3 to 6 indefinite pairs of cerarii, composed of 1 or 2 conical setae and little or no concentration of basal trilocular pores; dorsal oral collars scattered over surface; anal bar present but often inconspicuous; antennae 9-segmented.

Comparison

Maconellicoccus hirsutus is most similar to M. multipori (Takahashi) and M. ramchensis Williams. It differs from both by having dorsal oral-collar tubular ducts and from the former by having a circulus. Maconellicoccus multipori lacks dorsal oral- collar tubular ducts and a circulus and M. ramchensis lacks dorsal oral-collars but has a circulus.

U.S. quarantine notes

This species was intercepted 1,493 times on a variety of hosts at U. S. ports-of-entry between 1995 and 2012, with specimens originating from Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Azores, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, The British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, France, French Guiana, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Hawaii, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Montserrat, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Sierra Leone, South Korea, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent and Grenadines, Taiwan, Thailand, Tortola, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, The United Arab Emirates, The U.S. Virgin Islands, Vietnam and Yemen. ScaleNet records it on a wide diversity of host plants including more than 200 plant genera in 70 families, and distribution records include all zoogeographical regions. It is taken in quarantine from many warm parts of the world and is polyphagous; therefore, we have not recorded older quarantine records. One species of Maconellicoccus other than M. hirsutus and M. multipori (Takahashi) has been taken at U. S. ports-of-entry, M. ramchensis Williams (Thailand, on Durio).

Important references

Miller2001; Willia1996b; Willia2004.

Scalenet catalog and citation list

Click here for a Catalog.