Biodiversity Data Journal :
Taxonomic paper
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Notes on the biology, distribution, biosecurity status and history in New Zealand of Macrotrachelia nigronitens (Stål, 1860) (Heteroptera: Anthocoridae)
Corresponding author:
Academic editor: Guanyang Zhang
Received: 11 Mar 2014 | Accepted: 09 Apr 2014 | Published: 23 Apr 2014
© 2014 Stephen Thorpe
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Thorpe S (2014) Notes on the biology, distribution, biosecurity status and history in New Zealand of Macrotrachelia nigronitens (Stål, 1860) (Heteroptera: Anthocoridae). Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e1077. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.2.e1077
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Macrotrachelia nigronitens (Stål, 1860) (Heteroptera: Anthocoridae) is permanently present in the wild in Auckland (AK), New Zealand. It should therefore be added to the New Zealand Organisms Register (NZOR). It is a specialised predator of thrips inside leaf-roll galls. It has been present in New Zealand since at least the 1980s. Aspects of its biology, distribution, biosecurity status and history in New Zealand are discussed. The first detailed specimen records from New Zealand are provided, and a biological association is noted for the first time with Teuchothrips disjunctus on Callistemon, probably its main association in New Zealand, where only two species of thrips cause leaf-roll galls. It has not been found associated with other thrips in New Zealand. M. nigronitens is not known to be present in Australia, but the poorly known Anthocoris austropiceus Gross, 1954 has been reported, in an easily overlooked publication, to be associated with Teuchothrips disjunctus on Callistemon in Canberra. This led to an early tentative identification, by the author, of New Zealand material of M. nigronitens as A. austropiceus, in collections. This likely misidentification can now be discounted, but further research in Australia is required to determine the true identity of both A. austropiceus, and whatever species of anthocorid was found in Canberra.
Macrotrachelia nigronitens, New Zealand, Auckland, NZOR, Anthocoris austropiceus, Australia, biosecurity, Gynaikothrips ficorum, Teuchothrips disjunctus
Macrotrachelia nigronitens (Stål, 1860) (see Fig.
AMNZ: Auckland War Memorial Museum, Auckland, New Zealand
AMSA: Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia
MACN: Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”, Buenos Aires, Argentina
NZAC: New Zealand Arthropod Collection, Landcare Research, Auckland
USDA: United States Department of Agriculture
Anthocoris nigronitens Stål, 1860: 43 [Original description]
Within New Zealand, Macrotrachelia nigronitens is present in at least the vicinity of Auckland City and suburbs (AK). The genus Macrotrachelia consists of 6 currently recognised Central American species, with only M. nigronitens extending (naturally?) into South America (Argentina, Brazil), and possibly also adventive in California (
Macrotrachelia nigronitens is a predator of thrips inside leaf-roll galls induced by the thrips. Two species of thrips (Thysanoptera: Tubulifera: Phlaeothripidae) are responsible for such galls in New Zealand, both of them adventive. One is Gynaikothrips ficorum on Ficus microcarpa (Moraceae). The other is Teuchothrips disjunctus on Callistemon (Myrtaceae). Ficus microcarpa is rare in New Zealand, present only in cultivation as an ornamental. Callistemon is far more common, and probably represents the main habitat of M. nigronitens in New Zealand. Note that Gynaikothrips ficorum in New Zealand appears to occur only on Ficus microcarpa, and not any of the other, more common species of Ficus. Note also that M. nigronitens has not been found feeding on any other thrips, at least not in New Zealand.
The data presented herein strongly indicates that Macrotrachelia nigronitens is present in New Zealand as a permanent wild population in suburban gardens and parks. It should therefore be added to the New Zealand Organisms Register (NZOR), as exotic and present in the wild.
The pathway of entry of Macrotrachelia nigronitens into New Zealand is unknown. It may have arrived here directly from the Americas, associated with Gynaikothrips ficorum, and then shifted host to the much more locally abundant Teuchothrips disjunctus on Callistemon. It is not known to be present in Australia, where both Teuchothrips disjunctus and Callistemon are native.
In about 2004, the author noticed an unidentified anthocorid specimen in the collection of Auckland Museum (AMNZ 59842), which was collected in the Auckland suburb of Henderson in 1997. Subsequently, Dr. Jocelyn Berry (then hymenopterist at NZAC) gave the author some material collected from Auckland Regional Botanic Gardens in August 2005, and given to her privately by the collector. This material was associated with thrips (Teuchothrips disjunctus) in leaf-roll galls on Callistemon sp. The species was subsequently found by the author in the same habitat in Auckland Domain. In the then absence of a clue to the identity of the species, the author noticed a published reference by
On 27 March 2010, the author collected and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthocoris_austropiceus.jpg), as A. austropiceus, an image of a specimen from Teuchothrips disjunctus leaf-rolls on a Callistemon tree in Auckland Domain. On 31 March 2011, an email was received from David Horton (USDA research entomologist) suggesting that the imaged specimen was in fact a species of Macrotrachelia, which he suggested was probably M. nigronitens, but with some reservations as the genus has not been taxonomically revised in recent times. Meanwhile, the author noted a specimen in NZAC collected in the 1980s (1986?), by entomologist Dr. Beverley A. Holloway, on a clothes line in her garden at Lynfield, Auckland. The specimen had an identification label on it reading "near Maoricoris benefactor", det. M.-C. Larivière. The specimen was with the other material of Maoricoris (an unrelated endemic monotypic genus). Full details are currently unavailable to the author, but it is important for this specimen to be tracked down and confirmed as the likely first New Zealand record of Macrotrachelia nigronitens. The issue is therefore highlighted herein for others to follow up. Until September 2007, the author deposited several other specimens into NZAC, tentatively identified as A. austropiceus. In 2008 the species was independently discovered in New Zealand (Tamaki Drive, Auckland), associated with Gynaikothrips ficorum leaf-rolls on Ficus microcarpa (e.g. MPI voucher specimen 09/2008/3333, see http://www.epa.govt.nz/Publications/proposal_form_macrotrachelia_spp.pdf).
David Horton initially intended to publish the New Zealand record of M. nigronitens, but it was apparently subsequently decided, after some correspondence with New Zealand entomologists, that the matter would be best left to them (D. Horton, pers. comm.) Note that the present author had already sent New Zealand material to Horton, who carefully examined it, including dissections of both male and female genitalia, and he determined it as Macrotrachelia nigronitens, based on the published literature. Larivière and Larochelle 2014 formally published the identification after 'comparison between specimens from NZAC and MACN', but without giving details how the comparison was made, or upon what the identification of the MACN material is based. Nevertheless, the present author accepts the determination as being certain enough to run with, in lieu of future taxonomic and/or molecular studies.
I thank Mr. John Early for access to AMNZ material, Dr. David Horton (USDA) for initial identification of New Zealand material as Macrotrachelia nigronitens, and the reviewers of this article for helpful comments.