Aleurocanthus Quaintance & Baker 1914

Genus Aleurocanthus Quaintance & Baker, 1914

Aleurocanthus Quaintance & Baker, 1914: 102. Type species: Aleurodes spinifera Quaintance, 1903: 63 –64, by original designation.

Aleurocanthus Quaintance and Baker:Quaintance and Baker, 1917 (15 spp. worldwide). — Corbett, 1935 (8 spp. from Malaysia). — Takahashi, 1942 (8 spp. from Thailand). — Takahashi, 1956 (3 spp. from Micronesia). — David and Subramaniam, 1976 (14 spp. from India). — Dubey and Sundararaj, 2005 (31 spp. from India). — Martin, 1987 (5 spp. of worldwide pests). — Martin, 1999, 2005 (generic diagnosis).

Generic diagnosis. The genus Aleurocanthus Quaintance & Baker is readily recognised in puparium by many stout glandular spines on the dorsal disc and submargin, and the usual carriage of exuviae of earlier instars in a stack on the dorsum, as well as white marginal waxy fringes. Martin (1987) prepared a key to a few species of this genus which infest economically important plants. The key included detailed figures of five species, including A. spiniferus.

Puparium medium in size, subelliptical or oblong in outline, colour usually dark brown to black and often fringed with white waxy secretion marginally. Margin distinctly crenulate or truncate-lobulate; submarginal area not separated from dorsum by suture. Thoracic and caudal tracheal folds and combs not discernible from dorsal view; dorsal disc and/or submargin covered with stout glandular spines of various length with acute or fimbriate apices; cephalic, 8th abdominal and caudal setae present; caudal furrow absent. Vasiform orifice small, subcircular or subcordate in outline, highly elevated as a tubercle-like projection of dorsum; operculum elliptical, almost filling orifice; lingula visible or concealed. Adult forewing usually dusky having several paler maculae, with radius and cubitus, and a prominent flexure present at the branch of R1 (vestigial) and Rs suddenly curving posteriorly at the branch beyond mid-wing length; hind wing with only radius, prominent maculation absent.

Remarks. The genus currently contains around 80 described species worldwide (Martin & Mound 2007; Evans 2008). It is well represented in the Oriental region, with about 50 described species. In Japan, only two species, A. cinnamomi Takahashi, 1931 and A. spiniferus (Q., 1903) are currently distributed (Miyatake 1980). The outbreak population currently infesting tea plants and that on citrus plants, which has been long established, have hitherto both been called A. spiniferus in Japan, China and Taiwan. The first observation that the host plant preference of Japanese tea-infesting population differs from that of the citrus-infesting population of A. spiniferus (Kasai et al. 2010) led to this investigation of possible differences in species recognition between them based on morphometric, bioacoustic and genome analyses, as discussed below.

Species Acronym Geographic origin (prefecture) Host Plant Date n

A. camelliae Uji † Uji (Kyoto) Ca. sinensis 24 July 2009 21 Kyoto* Kyoto (Kyoto) Ca. sasanqua 4 Apr. 2010 22 Ohchi† Ohchi (Shimane) Ca. sinensis 15 July 2009 6 Yame † Yame (Fukuoka) Ca. sinensis 23 Sept. 2009 12 Yame * Yame (Fukuoka) Ca. sinensis 18 Dec. 2009 23

A. spiniferus Shizuoka* Shizuoka (Shizuoka) Ci. unshiu 22 Feb. 2010 12 Shimizu* Shizuoka (Shizuoka) Ci. unshiu 16 Apr. 2010 24 Kyoto† Kyoto (Kyoto) Ci. unshiu 25 Apr. 2009 12 Seiyo* Seiyo (Ehime) Ci. unshiu 29 Apr. 2010 17 Chikugo† Chikugo (Fukuoka) Ci. natsudaidai 23 Nov. 2009 10 Karatsu† Karatsu (Saga) Ci. unshiu 20 July 2009 18

*Width of fringe wax measured from live samples. †Number of marginal crenulations, body length and body width measured from samples in ethanol.