Prococcus acutissimus (Green)

Family

Coccidae

Common name

Slender soft scale or banana-shaped scale

Field characters

Body elongate, often asyemmetrical, tip of head and abdomen acute; slightly convex in cross section; newly mature females with body creamy white or yellow green, older females dark brown or black; without an obvious wax covering; ovisac absent. Normally occuring on the undersides of leaves adjacent to a main vein. Males are unknown.

Validation characters

Legs reduced, trochanter and femur fused, tibia and tarsus usually fused; antennae reduced to 3 to 5 segments; tubular ducts absent. Other characters: Multilocular pores predominantly with 7 loculi, primarily restricted to vulvar area, rarely present on 1 or 2 adjacent segments; anal plates with anterolateral margin about same length as posterolateral margin; anal plates near posterior end of body; dorsal setae variable, usually spine like, with bluntly pointed to rounded apices; marginal setae short, slender, apices rounded; claw without denticle; claw digitules unequal; 3 pairs of prevulvar setae (posterior pair often obscured by anal plates); 8 to 19 submarginal tubercles around body margin; stigmatic setae differentiated from other marginal setae, middle seta longer than lateral setae; each anal plate with 3 apical setae and 1 subdiscal seta; with 2 subapical setae on each plate; anal fold with 4 fringe setae; without tibio-tarsal sclerosis; preopercular pores present in cluster anterior of anal plates.

Comparison

Prococcus acutissimus is unique by having the anterior and posterior apices of the body pointed, reduced legs and antennae, and no tubular ducts. It is somewhat similar to species of Coccus but no species in this genus has the unique body shape and leg-antennal structures mentioned above.

U.S. quarantine notes

This species was intercepted 15 times at U. S. ports-of-entry between 1995 and 2012, with specimens originating from Antigua and Barbuda, Dominican Republic, Hawaii, India, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, The U.S. Virgin Islands, and Vietnam. We also have examined material taken in quarantine from China (Magnolia), Guatemala (Gardenia), Malaysia (Rhododendron), Puerto Rico (Amomis, Dacryodes, Eucalyptus, Ficus, Pimenta), St. Croix (Eucalyptus), Virgin Islands (Cycas). ScaleNet includes hosts in 28 plant families. One third of the interceptions are on Pimenta. ScaleNet distribution records for P. acutissimus include the Afrotropical (Comoros, Mauritius), Australasian (French Polynesia; Hawaiian Islands (Hawaii); Northern Mariana Islands; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Western Samoa), Nearctic (Florida and Texas in The United States of America) and Oriental (various places) zoogeographic regions. It is also found in Japan in the Palaearctic region and Haiti in the Neotropics. Prococcus contains only one species.

Important references

GillNaWi1977; HamonWi1984; WilliaWa1990.

Scalenet catalog and citation list

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