The diversity of biologies amongst Australian thrips of the family Aeolothripidae is discussed. In the basal clades of this family species are phytophagous, also sometimes monophagous and univoltine (Cranothrips Bagnall and Cycadothrips Mound). In the most advanced clades, species are obligate predators, often on other thrips species (Franklinothrips Back and Mymarothrips Bagnall), but in the intermediate clades many species are both phytophagous and facultative predators (Aeolothrips Haliday and Desmothrips Hood). Keys are provided to identify the 36 species and 12 genera known from Australia. Of these, 32 species and 5 genera are endemic, and the southern continent relationships of this fauna are discussed. Seven species are newly described: Franklinothrips basseti, with unusual dark forewings, from Queensland; Cranothrips bellisi, the smallest member of this family and with the ovipositor greatly reduced, from the Northern Territory near Darwin; Cycadothrips emmaliami, from Macrozamia reidlei male cones in Western Australia; Desmothrips chirus, a grass-living species with remarkable Chirothrips-like females, from Darwin; D. darwini, a second bicoloured grass-living member of this genus, from Darwin; D. marilynae, in which males have a unique abdominal chaetotaxy, from Western Australia; D. stepheni, with unusually long cephalic setae, from near the Gulf of Carpentaria. Variation in the bicoloured, grass-living species Gelothrips cinctus Hood is discussed, and a Mymarothrips species from Darwin is re-identified as the Indonesian species M. bicolor Strassen.

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Almost all of the thrips species that are considered pests are members of a single subfamily of Thripidae, the Thripinae, a group that represents less than 30% of the species in the insect Order Thysanoptera. Three of the five major Families of Thysanoptera (Aeolothripidae, Heterothripidae, Melanthripidae) are not known to include any pest species. The Phlaeothripidae that includes more than 50% of the 6300 thrips species listed includes very few that are considered to be pests. Within the Thripidae, the members of the three smaller subfamilies, Panchaetothripinae, Dendrothripinae and Sericothripinae, include remarkably few species that result in serious crop losses. It is only in the subfamily Thripinae, and particularly among species of the Frankliniella genus-group and the Thrips genus-group that the major thrips species are found, including all but one of the vectors of Orthotospovirus infections. It is argued that the concept of pest is a socio-economic problem, with the pest status of any particular species being dependent on geographical area, cultivation practices, and market expectations as much as the intrinsic biology of any thrips species.

The genus Dendrothrips Uzel (Thysanoptera: Thripidae, Dendrothripinae) comprises 50 described species from the Old World, including a fourth species from Australia, D. williamsi sp. n. For many of these species no host plant has been recorded, but the genera and families of the recorded host plants of 27 species are tabulated. These thrips are mainly associated with trees and shrubs, and the plant families involved come from five of the six subclasses of the Dicotyledonae. Several Dendrothrips species are recorded from Oleaceae and Flacourtiaceae, but none from the major families of tropical trees, Moraceae and Lauraceae.

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