Coccus viridis (Green)

Family

Coccidae

Common name

Green scale

Field characters

Body oval to elongate oval; flat to slightly convex in lateral view; body light green, often transparent, usually with a U-shaped or V-shaped pattern in the middle of the body formed by black spots; not turning dark with age; without an obvious wax covering; ovisac absent. Occurring on arboreal parts of plant, particularly the undersides of leaves. Males normally absent, mentioned as present by Kohler1976, Kohler1977, Kohler1978) depending on population density. Kohler1978 also mentioned two "races" one that is parthenogenetic and the other that is sexual. Eggs hatch within the body of the female.

Validation characters

Dorsal setae enlarged, apically clavate or rounded; ventral tubular ducts medial between middle legs, hind legs, and abdominal segment 1; dorsal submarginal tubular ducts absent; claw with or without small denticle. Other characters: Claw digitules equal; 3 pairs of prevulvar setae (posterior pair often obscured by anal plates); 4-11 submarginal tubercles around body margin; marginal setae slightly enlarged, strongly fimbriate; anal plates with posterior margin about equal in length to anterior margin; each anal plate with 4 apical setae, without a subdiscal seta; with 2 subapical setae on each plate; anal fold with 4 fringe setae; with tibio-tarsal sclerosis; antennae 7-segmented; stigmatic setae differentiated from other marginal setae, middle seta slightly longer than lateral setae; multilocular pores normally with 7 loculi; multiloculars usually present on all abdominal segments; preopercular pores in small numbers, inconspicuous or absent.

Comparison

Coccus viridis also is similar to C. hesperidum Linnaeus but differs by having the marginal setae strongly fimbriate (these setae are weakly fimbriate or simple in C. hesperidum) the multilocular pores are common anterior of the vulvar segments (the multiloculars are rare anterior of the vulva on C. hesperidum), and the dorsal setae are capitate (they are pointed in C. hesperidum).

U.S. quarantine notes

This species was intercepted 5,332 times on a variety of hosts at U. S. ports-of-entry between 1995 and 2012, and is the most commonly intercepted soft scale taken at U. S. borders. These interceptions originated from American Samoa, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Colombia, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Hawaii, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Malyasia, Mexico, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Taiwan, Tahiti, Thailand,Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, The U.S. Virgin Islands, and Vietnam. It is commonly intercepted from nearly all tropical areas of the world that send plant material to the United States of America; therefore older quarantine records are not given. ScaleNet includes hosts in over 50 plant families from 60+ countries worldwide in all zoogeographic regions. Two species of Coccus other than C. capparidis Green, C. hesperidum Linnaeus, C. longulus (Douglas), C. moestus De Lotto, C. pseudohesperidum (Cockerell) and C. viridis have been taken at U. S. ports-of-entry, C. alpinus De Lotto (Brazil, on Coffea) and C. celatus (The Philippines, on Dimocarpus, Lansium and Synsepalum).

Important references

DeLott1978; HamonWi1984; Kohler1976; Kohler1977; Kohler1978; GillNaWi1977; Tang1991; WilliaWa1990.

Scalenet catalog and citation list

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