Superfamily ALEYRODOIDEA

Aleyrodidae

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Introduction

The Aleyrodoidea, commonly known as Whiteflies, are sap feeders and have been reported as vectors of plant viruses. Adults are small (2 mm or less) and fragile, and usually evenly covered with white, waxy powder. The nymphs are scale-like and often wax-covered. Morphologically and biologically, the adults resemble Psylloidea, whereas the immatures are more like Coccoidea.

Hosts are almost exclusively angiosperms, mostly woody dicots. The Greenhouse Whitefly, Trialeurodes vaporariorum, is a well-known polyphagous species with hosts in more than 80 plant families. Neomaskiella bergii, on sugar cane and other grasses in Australia and elsewhere, is one of few species world-wide known to be ant-attended. (CSIRO 1991)

This Aleyrodoidea section of the Australian Faunal Directory is part of an ongoing project and updates are anticipated. It has been released now in response to requests to make the information freely available on the web, especially to users of the Australian Plant Pest Database.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Keith Houston and Kathy Tsang, Australian Biological Resources Study, for editorial and technical assistance. This project was funded by the Australian Biological Resources Study.

Limital Area

Distribution data in the Directory is by political and geographic region descriptors and serves as a guide to the distribution of a taxon. For details of a taxon's distribution, the reader should consult the cited references (if any) at genus and species levels.

Australia is defined as including Lord Howe Is., Norfolk Is., Cocos (Keeling) Ils, Christmas Is., Ashmore and Cartier Ils, Macquarie Is., Australian Antarctic Territory, Heard and McDonald Ils, and the waters associated with these land areas of Australian political responsibility. Political areas include the adjacent waters.

Terrestrial geographical terms are based on the drainage systems of continental Australia, while marine terms are self explanatory except as follows: the boundary between the coastal and oceanic zones is the 200 m contour; the Arafura Sea extends from Cape York to 124 DEG E; and the boundary between the Tasman and Coral Seas is considered to be the latitude of Fraser Island, also regarded as the southern terminus of the Great Barrier Reef.

Distribution records, if any, outside of these areas are listed as extralimital. The distribution descriptors for each species are collated to genus level. Users are advised that extralimital distribution for some taxa may not be complete.

General References

Carver, M., Gross, G.F. & Woodward, T.E. 1991. Hemiptera (bugs, leafhoppers, cicadas, aphids, scale insects, etc.) [with contributions by Cassis, G., Evans, J.W., Fletcher, M.J., Hill, L., Lansbury, I., Malipatil, M.B., Monteith, G.B., Moulds, M.S., Polhemus, J.T., Slater, J.A., Štys, P., Taylor, K.L., Weir, T.A. & Williams, D.J.]. pp. 429-509 in CSIRO (ed.). The Insects of Australia. A textbook for students and research workers. Melbourne : Melbourne University Press Vol. 1 xiii 542 pp.

History of changes