Rastrococcus invadens Williams

Family

Pseudococcidae

Common name

Mango mealybug

Field characters

Body oval; slightly rounded in lateral view; body light yellow to pale green; mealy wax thin, allowing body color to show through, without a medial longitudinal crest; with triangular-shaped bare area on medial area of body, widest portion of bare area on prothorax or head, narrowest on abdomen; ovisac absent; with 17 pairs of unusually long lateral wax filaments, anterior 2 pairs (head) nearly as long as body, next 6 pairs (thoracic) all about same length 1/2 to 1 time width of body, next 9 pairs (abdominal) becoming progressively longer posteriorly, anterior-most pair about equal to greatest width of body, posterior pair nearly 4 times length of body. Occurring on foliage of host. Ovoviviparous, first instars light yellow. Surface of lateral filaments smooth.

Validation characters

Anterior ostioles absent; cerarii with more than 5 truncate setae; cerarii on anterior thorax and head separate; without long dorsal setae adjacent to anal ring; quinquelocular pores present on venter; large-sized quinqueloculars present n marginal band on venter, about 1 pore wide; multilocular pores restricted to abdomen, absent from lateral areas; antennae 9-segmented; denticle on claw.

Comparison

Rastrococcus invadens is similar to R. spinosus by having the ventral multilocular pores confined to the abdomen, having ventral multilocular pores absent from lateral areas of abdomen, and by having a band of large-sized quinquelocular pores along body margin. Rastrococcus invadens differs by having the large-sized quinquelocular band along the body margin about 1 pore wide and by lacking extra truncate setae between the cerarii on the thorax. Rastrococcus spinosus has the large-sized quinquelocular band along the body margin 2 or 3 pores wide and has many extra truncate setae between the cerarii on the thorax.

U.S. quarantine notes

This species was intercepted 7 times at U. S. ports-of-entry between 1995 and 2012, with specimens originating from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, and Vietnam. We also have examined quarantine specimens from Nigeria (Cola); Thailand (Strongylodon); Vietnam (Caladium). ScaleNet lists the species from more than 30 families of host plants and distribution records include the Afrotropical and Oriental zoogeographic regions only. It has been intercepted at U. S. ports-of-entry primarily from southern Asia. Four species of Rastrococcus other than R. iceryoides (Green), R. invadens, and R. spinosus (Robinson) have been taken at U. S. ports-of-entry including: R. expeditionis Williams (Vietnam, on Dimocarpus); R. biggeri Williams & Watson (Vietnam, The Philippines and Thailand, on Nephelium); R. jabadiu Williams (Indonesia, The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, on Ficus, Nephelium, Stephanotis and Stropanthus); The Philippinesand R. tropicasiatics Williams (The Philippines and Vietnam, on Mangifera, Murraya and Nephelium).

Important references

Narasi1990, Willia1986b, Willia1989, Willia2004.

Scalenet catalog and citation list

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