Valid Names Results

Praecocaspis diversa Ferris, 1942 (Diaspididae: Praecocaspis)

Nomenclatural History

• Praecocaspis diversa Ferris 1942: SIV-411. Type data: UNITED STATES: Florida, Miami, on Trema sp., by G.H. Baker. Syntypes, female, Type depository: Davis: The Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, California, USA; accepted valid name Illustr.
• Pracocaspis diversa; Beardsley & Gonzalez 1975: 54. misspelling of genus name

Common Names

• diverse scale Dekle1965c

Ecological Associates

Hosts:

Families: 3 | Genera: 3

Geographic Distribution

Keys

Remarks

• Systematics: Praecocaspis diversa is an entirely unique form quite unlike anything else that is currently known. The extraordinary pygidial macroducts are immediately distinctive. The male is winged (Ferris, 1942).
• Structure: Female scale irregular or more or less circular mass of felted threads of wax which entirely encloses the insect and upon which lies the pale yellow 1st exuviae. Male scale also a mass of felted threads, elongate, with the exuviae at one end and pale yellow. The wax of both sexes is pure white. Adult female about 0.75 mm long, almost circular when slide-mounted. Pygidium without lobes or plates, its apex with a pair of low prominences which perhaps represent the lobes of the 8th segment. Dorsum of the pygidium quite strongly sclerotized, the relatively very large anal opening at about the center of this sclerotization (Ferris, 1942).
• General Remarks: Best description and illustration by Ferris (1942). Detailed description and illustration of first and second instars by Howell & Tippins (1975b).

Illustrations

Citations