Species Ferrisia virgata (Cockerell, 1893)

Museums

Museum list

Regional Maps

Species Ferrisia virgata (Cockerell, 1893)

Distribution

Other Regions

Christmas Island terrestrial & freshwater

Ecological Descriptors

Sap-feeder.

ID Keys

(Lit, I.L., Caasi-Lit, M. & Calilung, V.J., 1998) [31] (female; Philippines); (Kosztarab, M., 1996) [124] (female; northeastern North USA); (Williams, D.J., 1996) [3] (female; world); (Tang, F.T., 1992) [209] (female; Palaearctic & Oriental Regions); (Williams, D.J. & Watson, G.W., 1988) [77] (female; tropical South Pacific region); (Williams, D.J., 1970) [ 114] (female; world); (McKenzie, H.L., 1967) [179] (female; U.S.A., California); (Beardsley, J.W., 1960) [211] (male; Hawaii); (Ferris, G.F., 1953) [360] (female; North America); (Ferris, G.F., 1950) [88] (female; North America)

GENERAL

Good description and illustration of the adult female given by Ferris in Zimmerman, E.C. 1948. Homoptera: Sternorrhyncha. pp. 268 in Zimmerman, E.C. (ed). Insects of Hawaii. Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press Vol. 5 464 pp., Ferris, G.F. 1950. Atlas of the Scale Insects of North America. (Ser. 5, vol. 5). The Pseudococcidae (Part I). Palo Alto, California : Stanford University Press 278 pp., McKenzie, H.L. 1967. Mealybugs of California with taxonomy, biology, and control of North American species (Homoptera: Cooccoidea: Pseudococcidae). Berkeley : Univ. Calif. Press 526 pp., Williams, D.J. & Watson, G.W. 1988. The Scale Insects of the Tropical South Pacific Region. Part 1. The armoured scales (Diaspididae). London : CAB International Institute of Entomology 290 pp., Williams, D.J. & Granara de Willink, M.C. 1992. Mealybugs of Central and South America. London, England : CAB International Institute of Entomology 635 pp., Kosztarab, M. 1996. Scale insects of Northeastern North America. Identification, biology, and distribution. Martinsburg, Virginia : Virginia Museum of Natural History 650 pp. and by Lit, I.L., Caasi-Lit, M. & Calilung, V.J. 1998. The mealybugs (Pseudococcidae, Coccoidea, Hemiptera) of eggplant (Solanum melongena Linn.) in the Philippines. Philippine Entomology 12: 29–41. Good description and illustration of the adult male (from population in Hawaii) given by Beardsley, J.W. 1960. A preliminary study of the males of some Hawaiian mealybugs (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae). Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society 17: 199–243. Good description of the adult female given by Borchsenius, N.S. 1949. Insects Homoptera. suborders mealybugs and scales (Coccoidea). Family mealybugs (Pseudococcidae). Vol. VII. Fauna SSSR. Zoologicheskii Institut Akademii Nauk SSSR 38: 1–382. Descriptions and illustrations prior to 1980 appear to contain a combination of the diagnostic characters of both F. virgata and the very similar species F. malvastra.

SYSTEMATICS

Biparental populations of this species have been reported from U.S.A., Maryland (see Highland, H.A. 1956. The biology of Ferrisiana virgata, a pest of azaleas. Journal of Economic Entomology 49: 276–277), Hawaii (see Beardsley, J.W. 1960. A preliminary study of the males of some Hawaiian mealybugs (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae). Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society 17: 199–243), Egypt (see Afifi, S. 1968. Morphology and taxonomy of the adult males of the families Pseudococcidae and Eriococcidae (Homoptera: Coccoidea). British Museum (Natural History), 2nd Report on Economic Zoology 13: 3–210) and India (see Sinha, P.K. & Sayeed, M.Z. 1983. Sex-ratio in Ferrisia virgata Ckll (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae). Biological Bulletin of India 5(2): 140–146; Sinha, P.K., Sayeed, M.Z., Singh, V.N. & Srivastava, A.K. 1985. Observations on the courtship and copulatory behaviour in the white-tailed mealybug Ferrisia virgata Ckll. (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) under laboratory conditions. Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences, India 55(Sect. B, Pt I): 1–5; Paul, S.K. & Ghose, S.K. 1989. Descriptions of various instars of Ferrisia virgata (Cockerell) (Pseudococcidae, Homoptera). Environment & Ecology 7: 838–845). Sinha & Sayeed (1983) reported on a wide range in sex ratio (1:2.5–4 up to 1:16–17) in India. Copulatory behaviour of the male and female described by Sinha, P.K., Sayeed, M.Z. & Dinesh, D.S. 1985. Dispersal and establishment behaviour during post-embryonic development of Ferrisia virgata (Homoptera). pp. 141–144 in, Goel, S.C. & Srivastava, C.B.L. (eds) Recent Advances in Developmental Biology of Animals..

STRUCTURE

See colour photograph in McKenzie, H.L. 1967. Mealybugs of California with taxonomy, biology, and control of North American species (Homoptera: Cooccoidea: Pseudococcidae). Berkeley : Univ. Calif. Press 526 pp., Lit, I.L., Caasi-Lit, M. & Calilung, V.J. 1998. The mealybugs (Pseudococcidae, Coccoidea, Hemiptera) of eggplant (Solanum melongena Linn.) in the Philippines. Philippine Entomology 12: 29–41, and Wong, C.Y., Chen, S.P. & Chou, L.Y. 1999. [Guidebook to Scale Insects of Taiwan.]. Wufeng, Taichung, Taiwan : Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute 98 pp..

ECONOMIC AND CONTROL

Hanna, A.D., Judenko, E. & Heatherington, W. 1956. The control of Crematogaster ants as a means of controlling the mealybugs transmitting the swollen-shoot virus disease of cacao in the Gold Coast. Bulletin of Entomological Research 47: 219–227 reported this mealybug as a vector of the swollen-shoot virus disease of Cacao in Ghana.