Bebelothrips Buffa

(Figs 8–10)

Bebelothrips Buffa, 1909: 195.

Type species Bebelothrips latus Buffa 1909, by monotypy.

The small paper published in 1909 by Buffa comprised descriptions of two genera, Amphibolothrips and Bebelothrips, each to include a single new species. These species were both wingless, the first being based on a single female that had been collected near Rome, and the second based on three females taken on the island of Giglio in the Tuscan Archipelago about 130km northwest of Rome. These genera were subsequently recognised as members of the urothripine group of Phlaeothripinae, and they have been variously treated by several authors. Stannard (1952) placed Bebelothrips as a subgenus of Amphibolothrips, together with the six other urothripine genera available at that time. However, in 1970 Stannard reversed this opinion and recognised 17 urothripine genera as valid. Priesner (1964), in identification keys to the European Thysanoptera fauna, distinguished Bebelothrips from Amphibolothrips based on the different number of visible antennal segments, and these two genera remain listed separately in Fauna Europaea (2023). However, the generic classification of the urothripines was revised recently (Mound et al. 2023) and distinguishing these two as separate genera was not accepted due to variation in antennal structure amongst several other urothripines. These authors therefore placed Bebelothrips as a new synonym of Amphibolothrips, resulting in that genus now comprising four species (ThripsWiki 2023).