Family PSYLLIDAE

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Introduction

The largest family of Psylloidea with around 1800 species in over 155 genera distributed worldwide from the Arctic Circle to the subantarctic islands. The family has a wide range of hostplants from the Annonales to the Asterales, with many species utilising woody legumes. Some species are gall-inducers and all of the solitary lerp-forming species belong in this family. The latter life-style is not restricted to Australian species as lerp-forming species are known also from the Afrotropical, Holarctic, Neotropical and Oriental Regions.

There are 329 species, including 13 unidentified, in three genera recorded from Australia. Of these 85% utilise Myrtaceae as hostplants and, of this subset, over 90% are associated with Eucalyptus spp. However, these statistics give a distorted picture of the Australian fauna as upwards of 100 species of Acizzia are undescribed, most of which are associated with Acacia spp. Twenty-four of the recorded genera are endemic to the Australasian Region.

As presently constituted the family is difficult to define as, effectively, it comprises all those taxa that do not belong in any of the other five families.

Major contributions covering the Australian species are Moore (1970a, 1970b) and K.L. Taylor (1990). Publications covering individual genera are quoted under each genus listed here.

General References

Moore, K.M. 1970. Observations on some Australian forest insects. 23. A revision of the genus Glycaspis (Homoptera: Psyllidae) with descriptions of seventy-three new species. The Australian Zoologist 15: 248-342

Moore, K.M. 1970. Observations on some Australian forest insects. 24. Results from a study of the genus Glycaspis. The Australian Zoologist 15: 343-376

Taylor, K.L. 1990. The Tribe Ctenarytainini (Hemiptera: Psylloidea): a key to known Australian genera, with new species and two new genera. Invertebrate Taxonomy 4: 95-121

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