Saccharicoccus sacchari (Cockerell)

Family

Pseudococcidae

Common name

Pink sugarcane mealybug

Field characters

Body elongate oval, often quite large (7mm); convex in lateral view; body pink; mealy wax thin, allowing body color through; without longitudinal bare areas on dorsum; ovisac ventral; lateral wax filaments normally absent, 1 short pair may be visible in newly matured adult females. Occurring in leaf sheats of grass host.

Validation characters

Circulus hour-glass shaped; small discoidal pores surrounding hind coxae; cerarii restricted to anal lobes; posterior abdominal segments each with single, long seta protruding from each body margin; multilocular pores present on dorsum and venter.

Comparison

Saccharicoccus sacchari differs from all other mealybugs by having a conspicuous hour-glass shaped circulus, small discoidal pores on derm surrounding hind coxae, 1 pair of cerarii, and 1 long seta on each body margin of each posterior abdominal segment.

U.S. quarantine notes

This species was intercepted 103 times at U. S. ports-of-entry between 1995 and 2012, with specimens originating from Antigua, Brazil, China, Egypt, Fiji, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, Singapore, St. Kitts and Nevis, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, The U. S. Virgin Islands, and Vietnam. This species is cosmopolitan in warm areas of the world so a list of older interceptions is not given, ScaleNet lists the species from the Poaceae only and distribution records include all zoogeographic regions. It is most commonly taken from the leaf sheaths of sugar cane from nearly all areas of the world where sugarcane is grown. Saccharicoccus is a monotypic genus but is similar to species of Trionymus.

Important references

Willia2004; WilliaGr1992.

Scalenet catalog and citation list

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