Gavrilov-Zimin, I.A., & Kurochkin, A.S. 2019 Millennial zoological mystery of medieval Persian scientists. Zoosystematica Rossica 28(2): 201–227

Keywords:

  • biology
  • illustration
  • key
  • taxonomy
  • Notes: We consider some species of the felt scale insects (Coccinea: Eriococcidae) as the organisms, which have probably been used for the production of the red dye in the medieval countries of Western and Central Asia. The review of biological characters, identification key, new figures and color photographs are provided for the species of Acanthococcus and Gossyparia associated with Salix spp. in the Asiatic Region. Acanthococcus turanicus Matesova, 1967 is placed in synonymy with A. salicis (Borchsenius, 1938), and A. altaicus Matesova, 1967 is placed in synonymy with A. spiraeae Borchsenius, 1949. Earlier discovered synonymy of A. melnikensis (Hodgson et Trencheva, 2008) with A. aceris Signoret, 1875 is discussed. Some other dye-producing scale insects and their pigments are also briefly considered.

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