Species Scolypopa australis (Walker, 1851)

Scolypopa australis (Walker), adults on kiwifruit in New Zealand.

© Copyright Geoff Gurr, Charles Sturt University, Orange.

Museums

Regional Maps

• Pochazia australis Walker, F. 1851. List of the Specimens of Homopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum. London : British Museum (Natural History) Vol. 2 pp. 261-636. [430].

  Type data:

   
  Syntype(s) BMNH ♀ (from Mr. Lambert's collection), New Holland; BMNH ♀, New Holland.
• Flatoides australis Walker, F. 1858. List of specimens of Homopterous insects in the collection of the British Museum. Supplement. London : British Museum (Natural History) 369 pp. [102].

  Type data:

   Syntype(s) BMNH sex, quantity unknown (Presented by —Gibbons, Esq.), Moreton Bay, Queensland.
• Scolypopa urbana Stål, C. 1859. Novae quaedem Fulgorinorum formae speciesque insigniores. Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift 3: 313-327 [325].

  Type data:

   Syntype(s) ZMHB sex, quantity unknown ("Mus. Berol." = Museum Berolinensis = Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin), Sydney, New South Wales.

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• Melichar, L. 1898. Monographie der Ricaniiden (Homoptera). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Hofmuseums in Wien 13: 197-359 [278] (synonymy of Flatoides australis, Scolypopa urbana)

Generic Combinations

• Scolypopa australis (Walker, 1851). —
  Melichar, L. 1898. Vorläufige Beschreibungen neuer Ricaniiden. Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien 48: 384-400 [278]

Taxonomic Decision for Subspecies Arrangement

• Melichar, L. 1898. Vorläufige Beschreibungen neuer Ricaniiden. Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien 48: 384-400 [396]

Introduction

This is the best known and most widespread species of Ricaniidae in Australia. Although native to Australia, it has become a pest of kiwifruit in New Zealand where large populations of feeding planthoppers produce copious quantities of honeydew on which sooty mould grows, marking the developing fruit. The species is not a serious pest in Australia although it can still build up to impressive populations and produce heavy sooty mould growth on native and exotic plants in gardens throughout temperate eastern Australia. It has been introduced to the Swan Valley in Western Australia. The morphology of the adults and nymphs was described in detail by Fletcher (1979) and its embryological development by Fletcher & Anderson (1980).

Distribution

States

New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

NSW, Qld, Tas, Vic, WA: Flinders (FLI), New England Tablelands (NET), NSW North Coast (NNC), Sydney Basin (SB), South East Coastal Plain (SCP), South East Corner (SEC), South Eastern Highlands (SEH), South Eastern Queensland (SEQ), Swan Coastal Plain (SWA), Tasmanian Northern Midlands (TNM), Tasmanian Northern Slopes (TNS), Victorian Midlands (VM)

Ecological Descriptors

All stages: pest, phloem feeder.

Diagnosis

Body ferruginous; head as broad as the chest; crown very short, bordered by a rim, concave behind, very slightly convex in front and consequently much shorter in the middle than on each side; front testaceous, rounded on each side, very little narrower towards the epistoma, without a rim, slightly concave where it joins the epistoma, with three ridges, the side pair curved, its breadth nearly twice its length; epistoma testaceous, triangular, not ridged; fore-chest more than twice the length of the crown, with a tawny middle ridge, hind border concave, in the middle, convex on either side, fore border the reverse, its middle curve exceeding that of the hind border; middle-chest with three ridges, the side pair slightly undulating; abdomen obconical, a little longer than the chest; the three processes above and the lateral plates tipped with black; legs testaceous; fore-wings ample, with a very slightly tawny tinge, testaceous along the fore border for near half the length from the base, brown mottled with tawny behind the testaceous hue and along the fore border beyond and along the tip, a colourless spot on the brown of the fore border, two or three very irregular and imperfect brown bands on the disk; veins tawny; longitudinal veins numerous; cross-veins few; fore border very slightly convex, along it a row of parallel cross-veins which are most oblique towards the tip; hind-wings colourless, edged with brown; veins black, tawny towards the base. Length of the body 2½ lines; of the wings 9 lines (Walker 1851).

Diagnosis References

Walker, F. 1851. List of the Specimens of Homopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum. London : British Museum (Natural History) Vol. 2 pp. 261-636. [430–431]

General References

Fletcher, M.J. 1979. The external morphology of Scolypopa australis (Walker) (Homoptera: Ricaniidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 18: 157–168

Fletcher, M.J. & Anderson, D.T. 1980. Unusual features in the embryonic development of Scolypopa australis (Walker) (Homoptera: Fulgoroidea: Ricaniidae). International Journal of Insect Morphology and Embryology 9(2): 129–134

History of changes