Species: Phenacoccus madeirensis Green - Catalog

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Common name: Madeira mealybug

Field Characters: Body oval; somewhat flattened dorsoventally; body gray; legs red; covered by thin, white, mealy wax, with dark dorsosubmedial bare spots on intersegmental areas of thorax and abdomen, these areas forming 1 pair of dark longitudinal lines on dorsum; ovisac covering entire dorsum; with 18 pairs of lateral wax filaments, posterior pairs longest, about _ or less of length of the body. Primarily occurring on foliage of host. Specimens in alcohol with 1 pair dorsosubmedial dark lines on thorax and abdomen. Surface of lateral filaments rough.

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Validation characters: Cerarii-like aggregations on anterior abdomen, thorax, and head, but not on dorsomedial areas of abdominal segments VI and VII; multilocular pores on dorsum of abdomen, absent from thorax and head; dorsal oral-collar tubular ducts scattered over surface; quinquelocular pores abundant on ventral surface; denticle on claw; antennae 9-segmented.

Comparison: Phenacoccus madeirensis is very similar to P. gossypii Townsend and Cockerell and P. franseriae by having dorsal multilocular pores and dorsal oral-collar tubular ducts; cerarii on medial or mediolateral areas of dorsum; numerous quinquelocular pores; mushroom-shaped circulus. Phenacoccus madeirensis differs by having cerarii-like aggregations on thorax and head only and by having dorsal multilocular disk pores absent from the mediolateral areas of the thorax. Phenacoccus gossypii has dorsal mediolateral multilocular disk pores on the thorax, and P. franseriae has dorsomedial cerarii on abdominal segments VI and VII.

U.S. quarantine notes: This species is one of the most polyphagous of all mealybug species (Williams 2004) being found on more than 42 host families. It is found in nearly all warm areas of the world but has limited distribution in the Australasian and Oriental Regions. Several species of Phenacoccus other than P. franseriae, P. gossypii, P. madeirensis, P. parvus, P. solani, and P. solenopsis have been taken at US ports-of-entry including: P. avenae Borchsenius (Turkey on bulbs), P. azaleae Kuwana (Japan on azalea), P. manihoti Matile-Ferrero (Central Africa and South America on Manihot), and P. pergandei Cockerell (Japan and Korea on Diospyros, Magnolia, Malus, Prunus, Punica, and Rhododendron).

References: Willia1987c; Willia2004; WilliaGr1992.

All references mentioning: Phenacoccus madeirensis


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