Armored Scale Insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) of San Lorenzo National Park, Panama, with Descriptions of Two New Species

Abstract

Armored scale insects include invasive economic pests that have been widely studied in human-altered habitats but have received less attention in natural habitats. Although armored scale insects are nearly ubiquitous associates of woody plants, they generally go uncollected in general surveys because they are not susceptible to mass collecting techniques, such as fogging, beating, or trapping. San Lorenzo National Park in Panama was the subject of a recent high-profile effort to quantify the arthropod diversity in a tropical forest (Basset et al. 2012). Here, we contribute to understanding the biodiversity of this classic site by reporting the armored scale insect species we found there in August 2010. We found that, unlike other rainforest canopy taxa, the armored scale insect fauna is dominated by highly polyphagous cosmopolitan pests. However, we also found new species, and we describe two of them here: Furcaspis douglorum Okusu & Normark n. sp. and Hemiberlesia andradae Okusu & Normark n. sp. We provide amendments to the relevant keys, including a new key to New World species of Hemiberlesia Cockerell that lack perivulvar pores. In this context, we treat Abgrallaspis Balachowsky as asubjective synonym of Hemiberlesia, and we transfer its species to Hemiberlesia, except for the following assignments to other genera Affirmaspis flavida (De Lotto), n. comb., Aspidiotus furcillae Brain, rev. comb., Clavaspis perseae (Davidson), n. comb., Diaspidiotus fraxini (McKenzie), n. comb., and Davidsonaspis aguacatae (Evans, Watson, and Miller), n. comb. Davidsonaspis Normark, n. gen. We regard Abgrallaspis azadirachti Ojha and A narainus Dutta & Singh as synonyms of Aonidiella orientalis (Newstead), new synonymy.

Phylogeny and classification of armored scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Diaspididae)

“…To date, these have had a minimal effect on the classification. Some of the taxonomic decisions made by Henderson (2011), Schneider et al (2013), and Normark et al (2014) reflect the molecular phylogeny estimate, but the widely accepted higher classification has remained unchanged. For instance, Takagi (2011) retained the genera Furchadaspis MacGillivray, Pseudoparlatoria Cockerell, Situlaspis MacGillivray, and Protargionia Leonardi in the tribe Diaspidini, subtribe Diaspidina, despite the availability of contrary molecular evidence (Andersen et al 2010;.…”

Aspidiotus bornmuelleri Lindinger, 1911, rev. comb. (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Diaspididae), a neglected endemic species from Macaronesia, with comments on the genus Cryptophyllaspis, and further notes on the scale insect fauna of Canary Islands, Spain

“…Borchsenius (1966) simply accepted the genus Cryptophyllaspis and included four species: C. occulta, C. elongata, C. ruebsaameni and C. bornmuelleri. This situation did not change until the work of Williams and Watson (1988) and Normark et al (2014). The history and present systematic position of the four Cryptophyllaspis species are discussed below.…”

“…Recently, Normark et al (2014) made the genus Abgrallaspis a junior synonym of Hemiberlesia. As a consequence of this action, in the same paper Normark et al transferred twelve Abgrallaspis species to the genus Hemiberlesia with the following explanation: "thought to be congeneric with it".…”

Armored Scale (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) Pests onAbies fraseri(Pinaceae) Christmas Trees Imported into Florida

“…Hemiberlesia ithacae was described in 1883 from specimens collected in New York, also from hemlock, and is now widely distributed throughout the United States (García et al 2015a,b). Hemlock scale was described in the genus Aspidiotus but transferred to Abgrallaspis, the combination under which most literature was published, and recently moved to Hemiberlesia (Normark et al 2014); it is unclear to what region of the world hemlock scale is native.…”