The Genera Hemiberlesia and Abgrallaspis in North America with Emphasis on Host Relationships in the H. Howard (Cockerell) Complex (Homoptera: Coccoidea: Diaspididae)

• Main Author: Davidson, John Angus Sr.
• Other Authors: Bickley, William E., Entomology, Digital Repository at the University of Maryland, University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 1960
• Subjects: Arctic; Ferris
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1903/30475; https://doi.org/10.13016/dspace/vchv-xwhf

The work reported consists of revisionary studies of Hemiberlesia Cockerell 1897 and Abgrallaspis Balachowsky 1948 in North America. The interpretation of North America is that of Ferris (1937), "all the mainland from the Arctic regions to and including the Panama Canal Zone." According to Ferris (1942), Hemiberlesia contained 15 species. As a result of this study, only eight of these species are here referred to Hemiberlesia. They are: rapax (Comstock), lataniae (Signoret), popularum (Marlatt), ignobilis Ferris, cupressi (Cockerell), diffinis (Newstead), candidula (Cockerell), and palmae (Cockerell). The species H. coniferarum (Cockerell) is newly assigned having previously been placed in Diaspidiotus Berlese and Leonardi, by Ferris. A tenth species, H. pseudorapax McKenzie, was assigned to this genus by its author. Seven of the 15 species have been assigned to Abgrallaspis. Both these genera appear to be North American in origin. Abgrallaspis was originally created for six species. Three of these occur in North America and were transferred from Hemiberlesia by Balachowsky. They are: palmae (Cockerell), degeneratus (Leonardi), and cyanophylli (Signoret). The last named species was designated as the genotype. Balachowsky (1953) later reassigned palmae to Hemiberlesia and transferred four more North American Hemiberlesia species to Abgrallaspis, namely, howardi (Cockerell), comstocki (Johnson), coloratus (Cockerell), and fraxini (McKenzie). A study of these species in the National Coccoid Collection revealed a complex centering about A. howardi as conceived by Ferris (1938). Usual morphological comparisons of slide mounted adult females failed to yield results, therefore, host transfer experiments were undertaken. A population of "howardi" of Ferris was secured on pachysandra. A total of 2,700 individual crawler transfers were then made to 20 different host plants. These hosts had been chosen because a preliminary study indicated unusual character variation in specimens collected from them. Fourteen of the test ...