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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #395166
Research Project: Systematics of Acari and Hemiptera: Plant Pests, Predators, and Disease Vectors

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: The immatures of the New World treehopper tribes Acutalini Fowler and Micrutalini Haupt (Hemiptera: Membracidae: Smiliinae)

Author
item McKamey, Stuart - Stu
item WALLNER, A. - Animal And Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)

Submitted to: ZooKeys
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/30/2022
Publication Date: 12/19/2022
Citation: Mckamey, S.H., Wallner, A.W. 2022. The immatures of the New World treehopper tribes Acutalini Fowler and Micrutalini Haupt (Hemiptera: Membracidae: Smiliinae). ZooKeys. 1136:187-208. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1136.90525.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1136.90525

Interpretive Summary: Leafhoppers and treehoppers cause millions of dollars of damage to US crops annually. To protect US crops from new invasive pests it is critical to be able to identify them. Many insects intercepted at US ports are immatures, yet very few treehopper immatures can be identified ay present. This is a description of immatures of two groups of treehoppers and the data includes the vector of pseudo-curly top phytoplasma disease in tomatoes. This paper will enable port identifiers to recognize these groups of treehoppers. It will also assist researchers by providing new characters useful for estimating relationships among all treehoppers.

Technical Abstract: The nymphs of Acutalis Fairmaire, Bordoniana Sakakibara, Thrasymedes Kirkaldy, and Micrutalis Fowler are described and illustrated (Bordoniana and Thrasymedes for the first time). The nymphs of all four genera are exceedingly cryptic. The nymphs of some species lack scoli on the head and pronotum but all have paired scoli on the meso- and metathoracic nota and abdominal segments III-IX. Some species also have lateral rows of enlarged chalazae on the abdomen, and even large scoli ventrolateral—the latter condition is unique within Smiliinae. The eggs are deposited in stems (not in exposed masses) and nymphs are solitary and not ant-attended. The fifth instar nymphs of Micrutalini range in length from 3.0-3.5 mm, much smaller than the fifth instars of most other treehoppers.