Phenacoleachiidae is a family of
scale insect
Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than the ...
s commonly known as the phenacoleachiids. They are found only in the
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
of New Zealand, and on certain offshore islands. There are two species in a single genus.
[UDSA Agricultural Research Service]
Hosts
''Phenacoleachia zealandica'' is found on
southern beech
''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Gui ...
trees and ''Phenacoleachia australis'' is found on ''
Pleurophyllum
''Pleurophyllum'' is a genus of subantarctic plants in the tribe Astereae within the family Asteraceae.Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1844. Botany of the Antarctic Voyage ...Volume 1. Flora Antarctica page 30.
''Pleurophyllum'' is native to the suban ...
'' species, daisy-like plants in the family
Asteraceae
The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...
.
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Description
The adult females phenacoleachiids are brownish-red and dusted with a white mealy powder and covered with a cottony wax. There are some coarse yellow curly threads and some short lateral filaments on the rear half of the abdomen. They have short legs and resemble mealybugs in appearance but are believed to be more closely related to the primitive ortheziids and margarodoids than to the higher scale families such as the pseudococcids. The adult males are reddish-yellow, large than the females and covered with white mealy wax. They have two lateral filaments. The first instar
An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ass ...
s are yellowish-red covered with the same white mealy wax.[
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Life cycle
Little is known of the life history of this family of scale insects.[
]
Genera
*'' Phenacoleachia zealandica'' (Maskell)
*'' Phenacoleachia australis'' (Beardsley) [Beardsley, J.W. 1964b. ''Insects of Campbell Island. Homoptera: Coccoidea.'' Pacific Insects (Monog.) 7: 238-252.]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3901298
Scale insects
Hemiptera families
Archaeococcoids