Antonina nakaharai Williams and Miller

Family

Pseudococcidae

Common name

Nakahara grass mealybug

Field characters

Field characters not recorded. Body broadly oval to circular; without lateral filaments; enclosed in a white, felted sac that usually has a thin, white waxy tube protruding through a hole in the ovisac at the posterior end of the body. Usually present at the nodes of bamboo shoots. Legs absent.

Validation characters

Legs absent or represented by inconspicuous sclerotized area, sometimes with small setae; antennae reduced to 2 or 3 segments; spiracles with trilocular pores only, present in sclerotized band surrounding spiracular atrium; clusters of discoidals in ventrosubmarginal areas of metathorax to abdominal segments IV, V, or VI; with dorsomarginal band of multilocular pores around body; abdominal segments not forming sclerotized plate-like structures on segments III or IV to VIII; anal ring at apex of internal tube; with an average of 1 and range of 0 to 4 ventral multilocular pores within area delimited by lateral margin of discoidal pore clusters on each side of segment IV.

Comparison

Antonina nakaharai is very similar to A. crawi Cockerell and A. socialis Newstead and has often been confused with them (WilliaMi2002). They can be separated as follows: A. nakaharai has an average of 1 and range of 0 to 4 ventral multilocular pores within area delimited by lateral margin of discoidal pore clusters on each side of segment IV (A. crawi has an average of 14 and a range of 6 to 24 pores, A. socialis has an average of 2 and a range of 0 to 7 pores); ventrosubmarginal clusters of discoidal pores present from metathorax to abdominal segments IV, V, or VI (A. crawi has clusters from metathorax to abdominal segments IV, V, or rarely VI, A. socialis has clusters from abdominal segment II to segments VII or VIII); row of dorsal multilocular pores on abdominal segment VII adjacent to intersegmental line between segments VII and VIII with an average of 0 and a range of 0 to 3 pores on each side of body (A. crawi has an average of 3 and a range of 0 to 7 pores on each side of body, A. socialis has an average of 6 and a range of 1 to 12 pores on each side of body).

U.S. quarantine notes

This species was not intercepted at U. S. ports-of-entry between 1995 and 2012, but it had been intercepted before that time.We also have examined specimens taken in quarantine from China (Sinobambusa); Japan (Arudinaria, bamboo). ScaleNet lists it on a diversity of bamboo hosts. ScaleNet distribution records for A. nakaharai include Australasian (Hawaiian Islands); Nearctic (eastern United States of America and Texas); Oriental (Hong Kong; Taiwan) and the Palaearctic zoogeographical regions. Other species of Antonina other than A. graminis (Maskell) and A. nakaharai have been taken at U. S. ports-of-entry including: A. pretiosa Ferris (Burma, China, Cuba, and The Philippines, on bamboo); A. purpurea Signoret (France and Italy, on various grasses); and A. zonata Green (China, on bamboo).

Important references

WilliaMi2002; HendriKo1999; WilliaGr1992 (misidentified as A. crawi).

Scalenet catalog and citation list

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