Haplothrips jordani

Haplothrips jordani (Bagnall) Zygothrips jordani Bagnall, 1909: 530 Haplothrips certus Priesner, 1929: 194. Syn.n. The genus Zygothrips Uzel is one of more than 10 generic synonyms of Haplothrips Amyot and Serville (ThripsWiki 2023). The species certus was described by Priesner from an unspecified number of males and females, together with two larvae. These were all taken in 1924 from grasses on the island of Siberut, one of the Mentawai Islands that are just south of the Isle of Nias off the west coast of Sumatra. The species jordani was completely ignored by most subsequent workers on the genus Haplothrips and was not included by Priesner (1933) in a key to Indomalayan species. However, it was included recently in a study of the Haplothrips species of Malesia (Mound 2019), but that involved a serious error of interpretation. The male type specimen was studied in London, whereas the published image of the head was produced in Canberra and is of the female from Frankfurt. More recent study has confirmed that the male and female represent two different species. The maxillary stylets of the lectotype male (Fig. 1) are widely separated with a distinct maxillary bridge. In contrast, the stylets of the female from Frankfurt are very close together medially (Fig. 2). As a result, couple 8 of the identification key (Mound 2019) produces incorrect identifications. The female “ jordani ” from Frankfurt, with the stylets close together, is here recognised as a misidentified female of Haplothrips imperatae Priesner, also described from Sumatra. In contrast, the male Lectotype of jordani corresponds to the key characters that refer to Haplothrips certus. Some of the certus syntypes have been restudied and compared with the jordani male, as well as with specimens of both sexes of certus that were taken recently in Serdang, West Malaysia and also in Sarawak on grass flowers (Fig. 3). In addition to the character states given in the available description of certus, this species has the mesopresternum fully transverse (Fig 5), and the pelta is distinctive in having the posterior margin flared along the anterior margin of the second tergite (Fig. 6). As indicated in the key to species (Mound 2019), the fore wing sub-basal seta S3 is unusually long and finely pointed in certus, the fore tarsus of both sexes bears a curious hook-like tooth distally at the inner apex, and the mid and hind tarsi are as dark as their tibiae. As a result, the name Haplothrips jordani refers to a species that is widespread in the tropics of southeast Asia, apparently breeding in flowers and possibly in the inflorescences of some Poaceae species.Published as part of Mound, Laurence A., 2023, Recognition of Haplothrips jordani (Bagnall); one of the oldest names in the insect Order Thysanoptera, pp. 597-599 in Zootaxa 5336 (4) on pages 597-598, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5336.4.10, http://zenodo.org/record/828189