The flower bug genus Montandoniola Poppius (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Anthocoridae) from Indonesia, with descriptions of two new species
Author
Yamada, Kazutaka
Author
Hirowatari, Toshiya
Author
Susila, Wayan
Author
Okajima, Shûji
text
Zootaxa
2007
1604
37
45
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.178743
66258c9b-78b8-48bd-82ba-bcc618c403e0
1175-5326
178743
Genus
Montandoniola
Poppius
Montandoniola
Poppius,
1909
:
30
.
Type
species by monotypy:
Montandoniola moraguesi
Puton,
1896
.
Teisocoris
Hiura,
1959
:
1
(syn.
Carayon
1961
:
543
).
Type
species by original designation:
Ectemnus pictipennis
Esaki,
1931
(=
Montandoniola moraguesi
Puton,
1896
).
Comments.
In addition to generic characters described by
Poppius (
1909
)
,
Postle
et al.
(
2001
)
indicate that
Montandoniola
is defined by the following characters: Body> 2.0 mm, cylindrical; head in front of eyes longer than diameter of eye; hind wing with two or three veins, hamus remote from junction of Cu and m–cu. The two Indonesian new species described below also possess these characters, except for their relatively small body size (
1.90–2.20 mm
in
M. ishikawai
;
1.50–1.80 mm
in
M. bellatula
).
The two new species were collected from the flowers of evergreen trees,
Macaranga
spp. (
Euphorbiaceae
) by sweeping, together with many tiny thrips (Ishikawa, pers. comm.).
Montandoniola moraguesi
is a well–known biological control agent of the Cuban laurel thrips,
Gynaikothrips ficorum
(Marchal)
(e.g.,
Tawfik & Nagui
1965
;
Lattin
2000
). However, this anthocorid has been reported to feed on more than
20
species of gall–forming thrips from a wide variety of host plants (
Muraleedharan & Ananthakrishnan
1978
;
Dobbs & Boyd
2006
). Therefore, it is inferred that the species of
Montandoniola
are predators on thrips. The two new Indonesian species also possibly prey on thrips in the flowers of
Macaranga
spp.